2025/26 marked a year of growth for the Portfolio Project as we collaborated with the graduate composition department at UNC for the first time, bringing in some of their composers as well as having a second performance of the program on their campus in the beautiful Tew Recital Hall.
Performance Details
Performance 1
January 22, 5:30 pm
Nelson Music Room – Duke University
1304 Campus Drive
Durham, NC United States
Performance 2
January 23, 7:30pm
Tew Recital Hall – UNC Greensboro
100 McIver St
Greensboro, NC 27412
Participant Pieces
The Dead Dog and Pony Show
The Dead Dog And Pony Show is inspired by the ecological philosophies of Timothy Morton, as well as an article by Włodarczyk Justyna and Jack Harrison titled “Discordant Harmonies: Interspecies Relations in the United States.”
Erich Barganier
Duke
Maybe Next Time
Thematically, the piece grapples with the loss of a relationship, friendship, or loved one and ultimately leans on the idea that maybe in the next life or when they meet again, everything will work out differently.
Ally Harvel
UNC Greensboro
Z JAVORINKY II
Written for the Ciompi Quartet the piece is based on the composer’s memory of a meadow in the Czech mountains called Javořinka, where the famous Kubelík family lived in a wooden cabin during WWII. Above the cabin is a hill on top of which a rock overlooks the mountains, where Rafael Kubelík used to practice violin.
Ronja Mokráňová
Duke
Foxfire
Foxfire is a piece about the stillness of night, and about places that seem to bridge the gap to another world. There are many such places in the hills where I grew up. In Foxfire, I imagine a strange glow coming over the shadowed forest, temporarily making the unseen visible, before subsiding as the light of dawn softly arrives.
Clem Pearson
UNC Greensboro
Move Fast, Break Things
Inspired by, and critical of, the capitalistic drive for constant innovation within the modern technology sphere. The title, based on a mantra coined by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, describes how his company’s success was based on innovating first, and taking anything else into consideration later (such as social, political, environmental, and human consequences).
Jacob Smith
UNC Greensboro