Underground Sounds

Underground Sounds

in the Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern

The popular Underground Sounds series in the Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern returns! This year, the series features national and international artists presenting compositions inspired by the vast, unique architecture of the Cistern and arranged especially for its extraordinary natural acoustics.

2025 Underground Sounds

This year’s selection of artists ranges from vocalists to composers to experiential ensembles.

 

Each artist brings their unique perspective, style, and inspiration to the Cistern through compositions evoking a range of topics and themes, including the power of water, the experience of vastness, connections to spirituality, and sensory explorations of Buffalo Bayou.

 

Sam Nester

March 13 – 16

Ticket release: February 14 at 9am

Sam Nester is an Australian-born trumpet player, composer, and sound artist based in New York. His work explores the relationship between humans and the natural world, harnessing natural processes to create immersive sound installations and musical compositions.

Sam Nester has created a site-specific musical composition for brass ensemble, designed to resonate within the historic Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern. The composition unfolds over 25 minutes, accentuating the space’s cathedral-like acoustics, and accompanied by an evolving light installation, transforms the Cistern into an immersive, meditative experience centered on water and its profound significance—both in the Cistern’s history and within the broader global water crisis.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

PURCHASE TICKETS

Sarah Grace Graves
Three Names

June 19 – 22

Ticket release: May 16 at 9am

Sarah Grace Graves is a composer and vocal performer working at the intersection between ritual and recital. She pulls inspiration from a variety of media, including classical literature and archival music recordings, to weave together stories through a blend of thoughtful compositions and improvisation.

Graves will present Three Names, an adaptation of Vespro, a program she presented in Rome in 2023, now reimagined for the cavernous Cistern. Inspired by her performance for the Scelsi Foundation honoring soprano Michiko Hirayama, Three Names draws from Hirayama’s fascination with Gregorian chant and Graves’s personal connections to spirituality and experimental music, exploring vastness, interiority, and harmony between past and future selves.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Les Cenelles
Echo Chamber: Resistance and Reverb

September 11 – 14

Ticket release: August 8 at 9am

Les Cenelles is an ensemble exploring the Creole diaspora through all findable forms of melody and memory to honor their cultural ancestors and preserve the plurality of their experiences through a prismatic and contemporary lens.

Echo Change: Resistance and Reverb is a spatialized sound performance exploring the theme of water rights and activism, inspired by national movements from Flint and the Water Protectors in the North to the Gulf of Mexico’s water infrastructure in New Orleans and Houston. Utilizing a multi-channel sound installation, the performance immerses audiences in a soundscape that resonates within the historic Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern, offering reflections on water as both a resource and politicized force.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Kurt Stallman
Listening Bayou

November 13 – 16

Ticket release: October 10 at 9am

Kurt Stallmann is a local Houston composer and sound artist whose work spans a diverse array of sound sources. From acoustic instruments and environmental sounds to electroacoustic combinations and synthetic sounds, his artistic practice includes both free improvisation and highly structured forms.

For millennia, Buffalo Bayou has nurtured a vibrant tapestry of wildlife and human history in the heart of Houston. Throughout this time, the bayou has been listening. Stallmann’s composition, Listening Bayou, beautifully weaves these rich auditory memories together, leading the audience on a captivating journey through sound, history, nature, and culture. The enchanting echoes of the bayou resonate within the sacred space of the Buffalo Bayou Park Cistern, creating a unique reservoir of its timeless stories.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Ticketing & Availability

Underground Sounds is a popular music series with limited capacity. Tickets are expected to sell out quickly. Please find information below on our ticketing procedure, waitlist opportunities, and refund policy.

 

Ticket Release

Ticket release dates are listed for each set of performances in the performance descriptions above and on the individual calendar events. We recommend marking the ticket release dates and times on your calendar as tickets will sell out quickly.

Waitlist

For any additional guests wishing to attend a sold-out performance, we will be taking an in-person first-come-first-served waiting list beginning exactly 30 minutes before each performance time.  

Ticket Refunds

All ticket purchases are final and non-refundable. Your purchase supports the work of Buffalo Bayou Partnership.