On Friday, May 22, Housatonic’s class of 2027 hosted the fourth annual Battle of the Bands, where five bands across all grades performed a wide variety of music. Kate from Baltimore took home first place for the third consecutive year, and Elizabeth Forbes and Percussion Talk took a second place finish.
Marathon, headed by sophomore Kartel Henry, opened up the night. This was the band’s first time at the competition, and Henry’s first time performing live, although he has amassed over 1 million listeners on Spotify for his solo project, COSIGNS. “[Marathon is] going to start releasing music,” he says. “I think I can use my platform to expose Marathon to more people.”
Next, freshman Samantha Silvernail and Adrian Dykeman performed for the first time as well. The pair showed ambition and composure in front of a large audience, and look like a formidable group should they find more Metallica fans to play covers with next year.
For the third year, Abram Kirshner’s Blossom returned to the stages of Housatonic Valley. The band played two original songs composed by Kirshner and his band members, and covered The Head And The Heart’s “Rivers and Roads,” featuring Anna Gillette’s harmonies with Kirshner. “I think Battle of the Bands really helped build my confidence on stage,” Kirshner said. He began playing music and writing songs less than two years ago, and is continuing his music career at college. “It helped me get used to that sort of pressure.”
Defending last year’s title, Kate from Baltimore played fourth with a very talented squad once again. The band has performed with a few different musicians over the years, but has consistently produced some of the most exciting performances of the night. “Our band practiced a lot and we just had a lot of fun together,” said lead singer Sophia Fitz. “Even if they don’t know if they’re going into music professionally, it still lets everyone show off their talents and lets them practice their instruments.”
This year, the class of 2027 took on the role of hosting the annual event, led by juniors Danny Lesch and Carmela Egan. “It was Danny Lesch,” Fitz said. “Look, I mean, he just blew it out of the park.”
Adam Hock, left, and Abram Kirshner take a bow after their performance.Simon Markow
However, the night wasn’t all smooth sailing.
Prior to the show starting, there were many miscommunications about when the performances would actually begin. A school announcement claimed it began at 7 p.m., however the organizers claimed the show would begin at 6:15 p.m. Ultimately, the show began around 6:45, with enough time for all the bands to set up while ensuring everybody would arrive in time.
There was also some deliberation about the order that the bands would play in. Blossom was initially set to play first, however band order was determined at a sound check that Blossom wasn’t able to attend. Feeling as if opening for the third year in a row, especially as seniors, was unfair, the band protested, and eventually resolved to trade with the newer band Marathon.
With stress creating high tensions in the room, Senior Elizabeth Forbes stepped up to remind the bands that, “We’re all here for fun, ok. This is not something to stress or freak out or get mad at each other over, we’re all just musicians who enjoy playing music.”
Elizabeth Forbes and Percussion Talk played last, covering crowd favorites including “Iris” by The Goo Goo Dolls, and ending the night with the song “Your Toy” from Forbes’s EP Dear Leo.
As a solo artist, Forbes played with juniors Jasper Oyanadel, and first time percussionist Jacob Robles. “I think we did good,” Oyanadel said. “As a band itself we did great … Very few practices, but we definitely picked it up and we stepped up.”
“I thought it was a great experience,” Forbes said. “Everybody in the beginning was a little stressed, and we kind of just all made a big group circle and we were all like, let’s not stress about this, let’s just go out there and jam.”
“I mean, it was, honestly, it’s not even a battle of the bands,” Fitz said. “It’s more like everyone just loves performing. Like, it’s just so fun to perform. And, like, no matter if you win or don’t win, like, the performance is what everyone comes there for.”
KK Kozik in her studio
It is a particularly fitting philosophy for an artist whose paintings often begin with the world around her but rarely end there. There might be something recognizable — a stone wall, an apple tree, a crow — but then there is something less certain. Something that appears to be one thing becomes another upon inspection. Memory gets involved. So does imagination. So does time.
Since moving from New York City to Sharon, Connecticut in 2006, the landscape around her has become increasingly important to that process.
“I just saw things differently,” Kozik said.
The change was not immediate. She remembers an earlier version of herself driving through Vermont without paying much attention to what was happening beyond the windshield.
“I didn’t have the means to see what was happening around me,” she said. “I just sort of la, la, la, la, la, driving to Vermont.”
But, she said, she started to pay attention differently.
“I became more sensitized as time went on,” she said.
Asked whether that change came with age, she said, “Age and so-called wisdom.”
There’s a sense of loss in her landscapes, but a particular kind of loss that also has a twinge of redemption. Specifically, what happens to a landscape when people leave it?
“When the people go away, the wildlife comes back,” Kozik said.
KK Kozik in her studio with her painting “Golden Delicious.”Natalia Zukerman
Kozik’s work has never settled into a single recognizable formula. She has painted landscapes, figures and still lifes, moved toward abstraction and returned to representation. Her subjects change, but the underlying impulse remains: to take what is in front of her and discover what else there might be.
Kozik describes herself as someone who is always trying to figure things out. Her paintings often have the feeling of a thought in progress rather than a conclusion. They have been called “single-line novellas,” a description that makes sense: They can contain the suggestion of an entire story without telling you exactly what happened.
The animals are part of that storytelling.
They arrived partly because of what was disappearing.
“They were like the new redemption in a way,” she said.
There is something almost funny about the way Kozik talks about this — not because the loss itself is funny, but because she refuses to turn it into a grand pronouncement. She observes something, considers it, and lets it complicate the work.
That same sensibility comes through when she talks about her own development as an artist. Her paintings make room for interpretation. They don’t always tell the viewer what an animal symbolizes, or why a landscape has been altered, or where a particular image came from. Instead, they leave enough evidence to make you curious and enough room for your own stories.
The effect is not accidental. Kozik has spent years thinking about how images work, both as paintings and as containers for ideas.
Her work is currently included in “The Naturalist,” a group exhibition on view through Sept. 13 at Kenise Barnes Fine Art in Kent, alongside Richard Klein, Sally Maca, Rick Shaefer and Tricia Wright. The exhibition brings together artists whose work engages with the natural world, including its forms, histories and mysteries.
Kozik is an especially apt fit for the exhibition. She is described by the gallery as a landscape painter, figurative painter and interiors/still-life painter whose work frequently moves toward painterly abstraction. Her practice, the gallery notes, is “fluid and continuous” — always searching for new pictorial problems to solve.
That search has also extended beyond her own studio.
For several years, Kozik ran ICEHOUSE Project Space, an 18th-century icehouse on Sharon’s town green that she transformed into an unusual venue for contemporary art. It opened in 2018 with Dan Devine’s “Inside-Out NASCAR” and went on to host site-specific projects by artists including Mark Dion, Eric Aho, Janet Biggs, Richard Klein, Kristin Jones, Lisa Hoke and Ryan Frank. The projects addressed everything from the decline of winged insects and native and invasive plants to Sharon’s iron industry, its gardens and its history as an ice-producing community.
The space is now closed, but its premise still feels connected to Kozik’s painting practice. Each project responded in some way to the physical location, turning what might otherwise have been a little historic outbuilding into a setting for contemporary art.
Kozik’s own work does something similar with the landscape. She takes a place and lets it become more than a place.
Kozik’s paintings tell us that something happened before we arrived, and that something will happen after we leave.
And then there is the question of what to do with the space in between.
Maybe Kozik’s paintings are less about that space and more about an idea, as she put it, of “which questions to think about.”
Jazzmine Bone and A Stitch in Tyme power through the Gambler’s Choice run during the 2024 Lakeville Open.
The event, which has been held continuously for 69 years, is open to the public with free admission.
Individual competitions will run from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and visitors can stop by briefly or settle in for the day.
A food truck, bake sale and portable restrooms will be available on-site.
The show is the primary fundraiser for The Lakeville Pony Club, with proceeds supporting young riders who need financial assistance to participate in lessons. Members and their families work throughout the year to create the event for both competitors and spectators.
Members of the Lakeville Pony Club and Echo the pony arrive for the costume class during the Lakeville Open in 2024.Caitlin Von Graf
For those new to horse shows, the day offers a chance to learn more about the sport and understand what happens in the ring. In equitation competitions, judges evaluate the rider’s skill, from beginners learning walk and trot to more advanced riders navigating cantering and jumping courses.
Hunter competitions focus on the horse’s style and smoothness over fences, while jumper classes emphasize accuracy and speed as horses and riders race against the clock without knocking down rails.
The day also includes a crowd favorite: the costume class, where horses and riders dress up in creative ensembles for a chance at the top prize.
Programs will be available onsite to help spectators identify competitors and horses. A full list of competitions, entry information and details for those interested can be found at rigameadow.com
Whether an experienced equestrian or simply curious about the sport, the Lakeville Open Horse Show offers a chance to enjoy a Hudson Valley tradition that continues to bring the community together.
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