2026 Bessaraboff Prize awarded to JoE Silva

The American Musical Instrument Society is pleased to award the 2026 Nicholas Bessaraboff Prize to JoE Silva for The Minimoog Book: The Synthesizer That Changed Music Forever; Sounds, Stories, and Technology (Denmark: Bjooks Publishing, 2024).

Silva’s volume succeeds remarkably as both an accessible, visually compelling book and as a substantive scholarly study of the Minimoog’s origins and first fifty years. The Minimoog Book is rich with high‑quality archival images, technical illustrations, and documentation of historical models and prototypes. These materials are paired with a well-researched and engaging narrative that provides a material and technological history of unusual depth for an instrument of the recent past.

Silva’s prose, along with first‑hand accounts from artists, engineers, and composers, brings the story of the Minimoog vividly to life. The depth of its documentation and the breadth of its perspectives ensure that this book will resonate equally with scholars, musicians, instrument makers, and the broader public.

Bessaraboff committee: Carol Lynn Ward-Bamford, Darcy Kuronen, Tom McCracken