The Dallas Music Office hosted its inaugural Dallas Sounds Amplified Artist Showcase last night at Club Dada in Deep Ellum, offering a live preview of the 2025 busking program that launched earlier this year. In partnership with Spune and the Mullen & Mullen Music Project, the free event featured 17 emerging artists from the program’s first official cohort, each performing 15-minute sets to a full house of music lovers.
The showcase highlighted the diverse talent selected through auditions held in January at House of Blues, followed by months of professional development and placement in downtown Dallas’ busiest pedestrian areas.
Since its launch in January, Dallas Sounds Amplified has aimed to transform city sidewalks into cultural stages, with buskers performing regularly at five designated downtown locations: Main Street Garden, Pegasus Plaza, Wild Bill’s area, Berkley on Ross, and Klyde Warren Park. Performances typically take place for 2 hours during lunch and rush hours, at 12PM and 4PM.
Kristina Kirkenaer-Hart, director of the Dallas Music Office, says the program not only provides public exposure for local talent but also opens doors to paid gigs and professional training. “We put them through professional development through the year, get them gigs at things like corporate meetings–spaces they wouldn’t normally be in that also pay well,” she explained. “It’s how I see us offsetting the fact that they’re playing for tips [while busking].”
You can catch these artists busking throughout downtown Dallas during the week. For schedules and updates, tune in to KXT on the air and follow Dallas Sounds on Instagram. The program is expected to expand into Deep Ellum this fall.
Full artist roster for the first cohort: Carly Tate, Sam Cormier, Gracen Wynn, MKN Coffee, Dev Wulf, Luke Herbert, Carson Lewis, Alexandra, Leslie Austin, The Blue Line, Going Places, Caleb Dean, McKenzie Brown, Erfan Ebadipour, William Fitzgerald, Katherine Paterson, Wang Taylor
Jessica Waffles is a freelance photographer/videographer and regular contributor to KXT.
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