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