Propellerheads

I'm Michelle Moog-Koussa, Executive Director of the Bob Moog Foundation. As you can glean from my hyphenated last name, I'm also Bob's daughter. At this point in my life, I profess that relation with a great deal of humilty and honor. My father was extremely humble about his accomplished career and embraced the humanist notion that we are all equal - exclusivity and superiority (and all the things that are wrapped up in being "famous") were not his bag. As a result, Dad talked about his work very little at home, even when asked. In reflecting on this in the two and a half years since my father's passing, I've realized that he just needed a place were he was "Dad" - a place where he wasn't viewed through the very large "Bob Moog" filter. As a result, you'll be hard pressed to find a Moog kid who knows much about the technical aspect of Dad's work.

I'll leave the technical explanations of my father's career to people who understand it fully. However, I can offer this insight -- this is what I know for sure: My father believed in doing things right -- reaching deep into himself to access his highest capabilities in whatever he did. The result of applying this ethos to his work is that the sonic world is a much more expressive place, boasting a vast palette of sounds with which to paint a soundscape. Through his 50 year career Dad dedicated himself to coaxing the richest, phattest, most organic sounds out of electricity for the sole purpose of giving musicians an additional voice for their creativity. I can tell you from watching him for 37 years that this took determination and perseverance. We are all, musician and music lover alike, fortunate for the sonic possibilities that have resulted from Bob Moog's life's work and his dedication to "doing it right".

The legacy that has resulted from Dad's technical brilliance and his creative warmth is truly remarkable. Literally hundreds of thousands of people around the world have been touched by Moog instruments and/or Moog sounds. Many people tell us that their lives were profoundly impacted or even transformed by the Moog Legacy. The Bob Moog Foundation aims to carry that legacy forward by creating educational and cultural experiences that expose people of all ages to the history and possibilities of electronic music. The four long-term goals that comprise the heart of the foundation are:

• Endowed Scholarships
• Bob Moog Foundation Youth Outreach Program - bringing experiential electronic music programs into the schools.
• Bob Moog Museum - housing Bob's extensive archives and serving as a resource center for the electronic music community. To be located in Asheville, North Carolina, where Bob lived for 25 years.
• Sponsoring/Creating Community Events- centered around electronic music.

Our most urgent focus is preserving my father's archives, which are in a state of peril. This one-of-a-kind collection includes a vast array of instruments, vintage equipment, photos, correspondence, articles, schematics, project notes, reel-to-reel tapes and more, and will form the basis for traveling exhibits and the eventual Bob Moog Museum. Restoring and preserving this collection will cost upwards of $200,000.00 US.

Propellerhead has stepped forward to support the Bob Moog Foundation as an acknowledgement of and as a tribute to the enormous contribution that Bob Moog made to the electronic music industry. As a user of Reason, which employs some of my father's original technology, I ask you to do the same. We are counting on the support of the international electronic music community to make this foundation into a lasting tribute to the Moog Legacy.