Sibelius announces
Garritan Personal Orchestra for Sibelius

Fully integrated version of leading sample library provides award-winning playback from the world’s best-selling notation program

Sibelius Software has today announced Garritan Personal Orchestra Sibelius Edition, a complete version of the acclaimed sample library for use with Sibelius 4. This integrated set of orchestral sounds will provide composers with a 'plug and play' solution for achieving top quality playback from within Sibelius.

The Garritan Personal Orchestra is one of the most popular quality collections of orchestral instruments ever assembled. It includes all the major instruments of the orchestra - strings, brass, woodwinds, keyboards and percussion, and has won more awards than any other orchestral library. The Sibelius Edition of the library includes the complete instrument set featured in the original GPO collection and is integrated seamlessly with Sibelius's existing sample player, Kontakt Player, itself developed with leading sample company Native Instruments.

The new release represents a dramatic advance, adding a huge range of new sounds which can be used on their own or with other Sibelius Sounds. This release also features functional enhancements to the recently released Sibelius 4: coupled with GPO's own powerful programming, these allow for powerful and sensitive rendition of articulation and expression markings (including slurs, bowing and tremolo indications, hairpins and other dynamics, and all standard articulations) during playback. The library provides unparalleled playback capabilities, all from within Sibelius itself. Users can even export an audio file to create a CD or an MP3 file of their music.

GPO Sibelius Edition will form part of the new Sibelius Sounds range of audio sample libraries, developed in partnership with world-leaders in the field of software sampling. Sibelius Sounds will provide a variety of award-winning instrumental sounds tailored to the needs of specific groups of composers and musicians.

Jeremy Silver, Sibelius CEO, said:

'The Sibelius Sounds range marks a huge step forward for those working with notation who require high-quality, realistic playback. Sibelius and Garritan are already leaders in their fields, and by making it easy to use them together we are extending the possibilities for musicians even further. We plan to extend the Sibelius Sounds range in the future, with additional libraries each designed to suit the needs of a different group of musicians'.

Gary Garritan, President and Founder of Garritan Orchestral Libraries, commented:

'It is exciting to see Personal Orchestra integrated within Sibelius and take advantage of Sibelius' interface. To work together to help musicians get more from their music technology is exactly what you dream about when you set about developing products such as these. Musicians, students and educators have been demanding this sort of integration of and will certainly benefit from this Sibelius version of Personal Orchestra.'

GPO Sibelius Edition will be available from November 2005. For more information, see www.sibelius.com/sounds.

Notes to editors

About Sibelius

• Sibelius is the world's market leader in music notation software.

• Sibelius was founded in 1993 by Ben and Jonathan Finn to sell music notation software for the Acorn computer. The Sibelius notation software was released for Windows and Mac in 1998/99.

• Since then the Sibelius Group has developed 11 music products for the professional, educational and home user, ranging from Internet publishing to guitar software.
• Sibelius has customers in over 100 countries.
• Sibelius is used in 50% of schools in the UK , Australia and New Zealand.
• Sibelius is endorsed by the Royal Academy of Music and is used by all the major music academies and colleges: The Royal College of Music, Trinity College of Music, The Juilliard School, Berklee School of Music, The Sibelius Academy in Finland , The Royal College of Music in Stockholm
• The world's leading music publishers, including Music Sales and Hal Leonard, all use Sibelius technology
• The world's leading film studios use Sibelius in the regular production of Film and TV scores. Most recently Sibelius was used in the production of Lost, the award-winning TV series.
• Sibelius is headquartered in London , UK , with a US subsidiary, Sibelius USA Inc., in Walnut Creek , California and a new Australian subsidiary, Sibelius Australia Pty Ltd, based in Adelaide .

About Garritan Orchestral Libraries

Garritan is an award-winning developer of high-quality soundware. Garritan Libraries have won accolades from celebrity musicians and music press alike. The Garritan libraries have been used in a variety of applications: from TV shows and film to video games, live concerts and ballets. Hundreds of schools and universities have chosen Garritan libraries for use with their music curricula.

www.garritan.com