Shirleigh Moog, Wife of Synthesizer Pioneer,
Dies at 82
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Shirleigh and Robert Moog, ca. 1978
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Asheville, NC - June 7, 2018
- Shirleigh May Moog (nee Shirley
May Leigh), ex-wife of legendary synthesizer pioneer Robert Moog, died of
natural causes today at the John F. Keever Solace Center in Asheville,
North Carolina.
Shirleigh was first introduced to her husband at a service
sorority/fraternity social at Queens College, City University of New
York, in 1956. The couple were married two years later and remained
together for 36 years, with Shirleigh providing the stability needed to
facilitate her husband's inventive spirit. According to friends who knew
the couple, her strong presence and sharp intellect were indispensable to
his career.
Born on May 3, 1936 in New York City to Benjamin, a
haberdasher, and Lillian, an office clerk, she was the third of four
children.
Shirleigh received a Bachelor's degree in education from
Queens College in 1958, and married two weeks later. She moved to Ithaca,
New York to join her husband as he pursued his doctoral degree at Cornell
University. There she taught in a two-room schoolhouse to rural children
in kindergarten to third grade. She was known as a strict, creative,
doting presence to the disadvantaged population that she served. She
stopped teaching in 1961, prior to the birth of her first child, and
devoted herself to motherhood and to supporting her husband's booming
business, R.A. Moog, Co., of selling theremins and theremin kits, which
she often assembled at the kitchen table.
The family grew in tandem with her husband's career. The
theremin business evolved when her husband invented the Moog synthesizer
in 1964 after working on a prototype with composer Herbert Deutsch. The
business grew in 1968 after the groundbreaking album Switched-on Bach by
Wendy Carlos brought synthesis to the public consciousness, and evolved
yet again with the advent of the iconic Minimoog synthesizer in 1970. By
this time the couple had four children.
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Shirleigh Moog Pictured in a Moog
Theremin Ad
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Shirleigh excelled at both raising their children, and doing
the books for the early iteration of her husband's company, all
while entertaining a broad range of musician guests with her exceptional
culinary skills and her naturally warm and engaging hospitality. Her
recounting of this experience was published in her 1978 cookbook, Moog's
Musical Eatery.
One of the tributes on the back of the cookbook reads,
"Shirleigh generates an enveloping aura of charm and sensibility
among her guests, her sequential control of the evening pulsing a smooth
waveform of food, friends, and conversation." -- Keith Emerson,
Emerson, Lake and Palmer
A classical music enthusiast and supporter, Shirleigh joined
her husband in co-producingClara Rockmore's Theremin record in 1975.
She considered Rockmore, and many of her husband's musical clients,
as friends.
In 1978 the family left New York and moved to rural
Leicester, NC, after her husband left his position as president of Moog
Music, Inc. There, Shirleigh immersed herself in gardening, homesteading,
and cooking as her husband started his new venture, Big Briar, Inc., making
custom electronic musical instruments She served on the Board of
Directors of the North Carolina Symphony and the Community Advisory Board
of public radio station WCQS.
The couple moved to Natick, MA in 1984 as Robert assumed the
position of Vice President of New Product Research for Kurzweil Music
Systems, which lasted until 1988. They returned to their residence in
North Carolina the same year. During that time Shirleigh became a
successful real estate agent.
In 1993, she combined her passions of healthy eating and
cooking by publishing her second cookbook, A Guide to the Food Pyramid.
She was a guest columnist for the Asheville Citizen-Times cooking
section.
In 1994, after 36 years of marriage, Shirleigh and Robert
divorced. She did not remarry, and devoted herself to taking care of her
grandchildren, volunteering for the local branch of the NAACP, serving as
Vice-President of the organization for one term, and participating in
race relation organizations and neighborhood associations. She was also
active in the Unitarian Universalist Church. She remained an avid cook,
reader, bird-watcher and gardener, achieving Master Gardener status in
1995.
Shirleigh is survived by her four children, Laura Moog
Lanier, Renee Moog, Michelle (Joseph) Moog-Koussa, and Matthew (Lucy)
Moog, and by her five grandchildren, Gregory and Yasmine Koussa, and Max,
Charlie, and Eli Moog. She is preceded in death by her siblings Matthew,
Mildred, and Sam, by her beloved son-in-law Paul Sylvester, and by her
ex-husband.
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