Resounding Manchester

Our research into Manchester’s multiple musical histories, communities and scenes offers a counterbalance to the dominant narrative about the city’s musical legacy as a hotbed of post-industrial punk and Britpop.

Looking and listening beyond the Haçienda Club, Factory Records, and bands like the Happy Mondays and Stone Roses that put Madchester on the map, we are especially concerned with the hidden and emerging histories that more faithfully reflect the city’s multicultural past and the musical contributions of its diverse communities in the 21st century.

As the world’s first industrial city, and now a city of sanctuary, Manchester is a supreme example of an urban space shaped by migration, colonial and postcolonial entanglements, and ever-expanding diasporic networks.

Manchester today is a thriving cosmopolitan city whose residents speak up to 200 different languages. As such, it offers an ideal vantage point from which to analyse the interplay between local and global musical identities and trajectories, and to advance a genuinely comparative study of music that addresses the global dimensions of past, present and future.

Through our research we seek to uncover, understand and analyse:

  • The role of key cultural institutions and live music venues in contributing to the socio- economic growth, regeneration and transformation of the city.
  • The artistic contribution of Manchester’s diverse populations to the city’s cultural and social life, both past and present.
  • The ways in which musical, social and spatial realms intersect as part of the urban ecosystem.