Sibelius Software Ltd, developer of market leading music software,
has announced the launch of Sibelius 2, the revolutionary new version
of the world's fastest-selling notation program Sibelius.
Sibelius 2, which has taken less than a year to develop, includes
well over 200 new features and enhancements - making it probably the
most extensive new version of any music software ever produced.
Among its groundbreaking features are the use of artificial intelligence
to arrange and orchestrate music automatically, the first ever commercial
program able to do this. This feature was partly designed by Michael
Price, whose orchestration credits include the recent Spielberg/Tom
Hanks TV series Band of Brothers.
Because Sibelius is used by all kinds of musicians from professional
composers and publishers to students, improvements have been made to
every aspect of the program, from notation and playback to Internet
publishing.
Sibelius has also signed a deal with Macmillan's Reference and Grove's
Dictionaries Inc to give Sibelius 2 users a free period of access to
the new 2001 online edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and
Musicians, the world's leading music encyclopedia.
Following this Windows launch of Sibelius 2, the company is working
on a Mac OS X version for release in the first quarter of 2002, making
Sibelius 2 one of the first music programs to be developed for the spectacular
Mac OS X platform.
Leading choral composer John Rutter, who was one of the very first
Sibelius users, remarked that "The best has just got better".
Ben Finn, CEO of Sibelius Software Ltd, commented: "Sibelius 2 is
a collaborative development between our customers and us. We've considered
thousands of useful suggestions from Sibelius users, to ensure that
the new program meets the demands of musicians of all kinds - and also
included some exciting new features which no-one else had thought of."
Notes to editors
Sibelius is the world's fastest-selling music notation software, and
Sibelius Software's technology is used by well over 100,000 people in
100 countries worldwide.
Users such as conductor Michael Tilson Thomas, ex-Police guitarist
Andy Summers, choral composer John Rutter and film composer Michael
Kamen have helped make Sibelius the standard way to write music all
over the world.
Read more about Sibelius 2.
All information correct at time of press release.
