Working With Stevie Wonder

When Stevie Wonder spotted Ray Kurzweil demonstrating the Kurzweil Reading Machine on the Today Show, he wanted to know more. So he called up the company that same day and paid a visit. He became the first customer of the Kurzweil Reading Machine in 1976.

Six years later, Wonder challenged Kurzweil to create a musical instrument that could combine the strengths of both electronic and acoustic music. The result was that Kurzweil returned to work on computer-based music, an area he had first explored with his high school music composition project.

Kurzweil founded Kurzweil Music Systems in 1982 with Wonder as musical advisor. With Wonder’s guidance, he created the Kurzweil 250, which was the first computer-based instrument that sounded like a grand piano and other classical instruments.