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.