Frankie Francis and Marty Longstaff discuss Sunderland Music City bid

Musicians Frankie Francis and Marty Longstaff discuss their new roles at the official launch of the Sunderland Music City bid.

Transcript

00:00Frankie Francis, well-known Sunderland musician of Frankie and the Heartstrings fame.

00:05What will your role be in all of this music city?

00:09Well, I'm delighted to be a music officer working on the project.

00:13What we need to do is put our arms around the existing music industry in Sunderland

00:19and it is quite vast. We need to celebrate that.

00:23We need to make sure everyone in Sunderland is aware of that.

00:27Then, connect all the dots, we establish what we have, we try and fill in any gaps

00:33and hopefully by next year we are in the European Music Cities Network

00:40which would be quite a thing for collaboration and exchange.

00:43And Sunderland has a reputation of being a music city.

00:47It already is one without the status and it's our job to try and get that status

00:53and then keep moving for more international music city statuses.

00:58Marty Longstaff, APA. Tell me what your role is in all this please.

01:03My role with Sunderland Music City is for talent development and communities.

01:07It's my job to connect, engage and make sure everybody making music, whatever level they are at

01:13feels part of the community, knows where to go, how to do it to achieve their aims.

01:18And what's the geographical spread of this?

01:20So basically we are starting from the city centre looking outwards across Sunderland

01:23so the Caulfields, Washington and everything in between.

01:25Everybody is welcome, we are going to be including everybody from every genre,

01:29every age group, any level of ability.

01:32We all make music because music happens everywhere in Sunderland.