Synthtopia.com: Moog Foundation offered $100,000 for inventor’s archives

Synthtopia.com recently posted a detailed response from Bob Moog’s widow, Ileana Grams-Moog, regarding her recent, and controversial, decision to donate the inventor’s archives to Cornell University. The Bob Moog Foundation, based here in Asheville and run by Bob Moog’s daughter, Michelle, has been working with the archives for about the past seven years and has expressed public displeasure with the decision. Background on Moog archives here.

From Synthtopia.com:

Dr. Ileana Grams-Moog’s Statement

I am dismayed to hear so much misinformation about my donation of the Bob Moog Archives to Cornell University. I did not intend to speak publicly about this. However, the number of false statements about the situation and the damage it could cause to Bob’s legacy have compelled me to do so.

I’d like to make the following clear:

-This was solely my decision. For anyone to imply that I was coerced by the president of Moog Music, Cornell, or ‘dark forces’ is laughable and false.

-This is not about money. The only money I have ever been offered was by the Bob Moog Foundation last week, who offered me $100,000 to buy the archives. I was offended. I don’t believe you can put a price on my husband’s legacy or archives. They are not for sale. I am not being paid by Cornell. I have not ever and will not ever receive money for this donation.

-Comparing Cornell’s world-class archival resources with those of the Bob Moog Foundation makes the decision clear. As the first chair of the BMF board, I have long had grave reservations about the financial stability of the Foundation. It would be irresponsible of me to place the archives with an organization that did not have a long-term record of stability and resources for a long-term future. I have always intended Bob’s archives to be publicly accessible as he wished, but keeping them with the Foundation was dependent on the successful achievement of the proposed Moogseum. It’s been seven years – there’s no Moogseum in sight, and scholars, researchers and students still don’t have adequate access to Bob’s archives.

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