Manc 61: Dr Kirsty Fairclough - The Queen of Pop Culture with a Purple Reign Over Manchester

We Built This City: Greater Manchester

“There’s a real sense of collaboration in Manchester that’s quite unique”

Dr Kirsty Fairclough is a reader in Screen Studies and Chair of the Manchester Jazz Festival. She’s also on the Music Board for the Greater Manchester Combined Authority - and as you’ll hear in this interview, she oozes Manchester music culture. However, it’s not just the maraca shaking scene of the nineties that Kirsty champions, as she says, there’s so much more.

You’ll hear how Kirsty went from gaining two GCSEs in high school, to lecturing at The University of Salford, just one year after graduating herself, at the age of 21. You’ll also hear how Kirsty connected Manchester and Minneapolis through her love of Prince.

Lisa and Kirsty also discuss the exciting development of Manchester Metropolitan University’s new SODA building and how the Manchester music scene is recovering after the pandemic, through creating new opportunities for young emerging artists.

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Your host, Lisa Morton, started PR company Roland Dransfield in 1996, one month after the fateful IRA bomb that tore apart the city centre. From that point, the business, and its team members, have been involved in helping to support the creation of Modern Manchester – across regeneration, business, charity, leisure and hospitality, sport and culture.

To celebrate the 25 years that Roland Dransfield has spent creating these bonds, Lisa is gathering together some of her Greater Mancunian ‘family’ and will be exploring how they have created their own purposeful relationships with the best place in the world.

Connect with Lisa and Roland Dransfield:

Via our website

On Instagram

On Twitter

On Spotify

Connect with Kirsty

Via the SODA website

On Twitter