And the winner is…..Valerie Matthews!

ACMP’s 4th annual Holiday Caption Contest was a success, with 69 captions from 41 ACMP members. I am not sure I would have been able to come up with a caption for this year’s cartoon…So – congratulations to all of you who exercised your wit and imagination to come up with a wide array of fun interpretations of my cartoon.

There is literally nothing as subjective as humor, and from my perspective, everyone who sent a caption (or up to three) was a winner. Reading all of your captions is a highlight of the holiday season for me! Thanks to all who submitted captions and to the team of people who helped choose this year’s winners.

And stay tuned – soon you will be able to purchase ACMP holiday cards with this year’s winning caption in the ACMP Store.

About the Winners

Valerie Matthews

Valerie Matthews, after a long career in software development, support, and sales, is now spending as much time as possible either involved in musical activities or being outdoors. An avid chamber-music cellist in the Washington, DC area, she also plays viola and lute in two DC-based Hungarian folk bands and occasionally dabbles with the double bass. She serves on the board of the Friday Morning Music Club Foundation, which runs international music competitions. Her outdoor activities include volunteering as a Montgomery County (MD) Weed Warrior, removing invasive weeds from county parks.

Connect with Valerie through the ACMP Players Directory

Peggy Reynolds

Like many violists, Peggy Reynolds began with violin lessons which occurred in the Kearny NJ public schools, eventually turning to private instruction.   While her interests in violin grew, by age 17, life, college, making a living, etc. got in the way.  The violin was on sabbatical for about a decade.  After obtaining her degree in accounting in 1978 she decided to return to her real interests: buying a house and resuming violin playing in some local orchestral setting (but yes, keeping my day job).   God smiled and both endeavors bloomed.  Peggy even fell in love with Herb, a concert master in a local opera company, who moved into her new house, became her spouse and mentor, and created an idyllic setting for the next 22 years of playing together in various orchestras, operas, travels to California and attending musical instrument auctions, like Skinner in Boston back in the 1990’s.  That’s where in 1992 Peggy scratched her nose during the bidding and wound up owning her first viola (not really, just love to tell that story!)  Peggy honed viola skills and in the ensuing few years P&H played at many special occasions, and even few artist gallery openings in SOHO.  P&H also briefly co-managed the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, NJ.  Alas, in 2001 Herb departed this earth way too soon.

So, since 2002 Peggy has been playing violin or viola (whatever was required) in community orchestras throughout northern NJ, even getting involved in management and recruiting players.  Since 2011 she has been the treasurer and business anchor for the Society of Musical Arts, an orchestra founded in 1981 by renowned violin teacher and author Samuel Applebaum (father of violist Michael Tree).  During covid, thanks to an ACMP group zoom in 2021, Peggy serendipitously got reacquainted with a pianist high school classmate living in the DC area, and for a brief time they played long distance piano/string duos via Jamulus.

Married in 2007, Peggy lives with her wonderful husband Al (not a violinist, but a great supporter of the arts and me, not to mention my own personal computer guru) in Jersey City, NJ.

Connect with Peggy through the ACMP Players Directory

Matthew Greenbaum

Matthew Greenbaum is a composer of instrumental and electronic music, and also combines live instruments with his own animations. A native New Yorker, he is currently living in Paris on an artists’ residency.  He has also published articles on Stefan Wolpe (with whom he studied), Mario Davidovsky (with whom he also studied), Schoenberg, Varèse, Bach, and musical surrealism.

He has been a compulsive captioner from an early age and has won the New Yorker caption competition, accompanying a drawing of two angels with bicycles with “I thought we were getting eternal rest.”

He has captioned these notes, “for Stephanie Griffin,” and captioned that caption, “in re: for Stephanie Griffin.”

He has further captioned all of the above as “Nested Captions, a Study in Infinite Recession” by Matthew Greenbaum

Connect with Matthew through the ACMP Players Directory

Congratulations to all of our winners and to everyone who came up with an original caption for my cartoon!