Sibelius 2 Now Available for Mac OS X
March 11, 2002
The Sibelius Group, developer of
market-leading music software, announced that Sibelius 2 notation
software program is now available for Mac OS X, Apple's powerful, UNIX-based
operating system. Sibelius 2 is the first music notation program to leverage
Mac OS X's advanced capabilities.
"Sibelius is more elegant and beautiful than ever, with a new look which
complements Mac OS X's stunning Aqua interface," said Ben Finn, CEO of The
Sibelius Group. "Sibelius 2 for Mac OS X represents our continued commitment
to meeting the requirements of music educators, students, and professional
composers using Macintosh computers. Users will be amazed at all the new
features that have made Sibelius easier to use than ever."
"Mac OS X delivers an incredibly powerful and intuitive environment for users
to listen to and create music," said Ron Okamoto, Apple's vice president of
Worldwide Developer Relations. "Sibelius 2 is a valuable music notation
application and we're delighted to have their support for Mac OS X."
Faster and easier to create music using Arrange
Sibelius 2 for Mac OS X integrates more than 200 new features and robust
feature enhancements, making it one of the significant upgrades of any
software ever. Among its groundbreaking new product features is Arrange, a
function that enables the use of artificial intelligence to arrange and
orchestrate music automatically. Sibelius 2 for Mac OS X is the first
commercial program capable of such power. Arrange was partly designed by
Sibelius user Michael Price, whose orchestration credits include the recent
Steven Spielberg/Tom Hanks HBO special, "Band of Brothers."
Sibelius 2's Arrange feature dramatically reduces the time it takes to
produce arrangements and orchestrations for any ensemble. For example,
Arrange enables users to rapidly orchestrate a complete piano piece for
concert band. This feature saves hours of time for composers, arrangers and
educators, and is ideal for students learning instrumental writing.
Faster Music Input and Improved Playback
Note input has been reengineered and is now significantly faster. Users can
now use almost every feature of Sibelius - including copying and pasting, and
moving lines and staves - without ever touching the mouse. Playback is even
more natural and realistic with enhanced Rubatoâ„¢ and Rhythmic Feel â„¢, which
adds human-sounding playback to music.
Graphics and Color
With Sibelius 2 for Mac OS X, it is easier than ever to import color graphics
into the music. Users can create professional looking covers or add color
graphics to worksheets. It is easy to color notes according to their pitch,
which is great for teaching note names to beginners or color according to
voice to make music easier to read. Users can also highlight areas of a
score, e.g. for marking up sketches, marking coursework, and highlighting
tricky passages to practice.
PhotoScore Professional 2 Now Available
The Sibelius Group also announced today the availability of PhotoScore
Professional 2 for Mac OS X; an improved version of the optical music
recognition software developed by Neuratron that allows users to scan
printed music into Sibelius 2 software.
Neuratron PhotoScore Professional 2 is the advanced version of the PhotoScore
Lite scanning program that is provided free with Sibelius 2. PhotoScore
Professional 2 scans and reads music faster, and with greater accuracy than
PhotoScore Lite. Once music is scanned, read and sent to Sibelius, it becomes
a fully editable Sibelius file that can be transposed, re-arranged, played
back and printed.
For more information, visit their web site at www.sibelius.com. | 
