Good news (potentially)

My first work composed entirely with Dorico, my Concerto-Rhapsody for viola and orchestra, will most likely be programmed in the 2026-27 concert season of an excellent orchestra in Montreal.

I am very happy, as is the violist for whom it was written.

We’ve had the pleasure of playing the Adagio movement (viola + piano version) in smaller recitals a number of times, to good audience reaction. and I am so excited at the prospect of finally getting to hear the work performed as it should be, with all of its complex layers of sound (which the piano reduction can’t come anywhere near approximating.)

I composed the Concerto-Rhapsody about a year after getting Dorico, so I was considerably more comfortable with using it at that point, having completely abandoned Finale in that past year. The two works I’d completed before that (a string quartet and a larger scale work for string orchestra) had been “started in Finale” then transferred to Dorico, where I continued to work on them. I was still not 100% comfortable with starting the composition process in Dorico+pencil/paper, having those 30+ years of Finale+pencil/paper muscle memory firmly engraved (pun intended) in my old brain.

Writing the Concerto-Rhapsody has also been an incredible learning experience with Dorico. I’ve had to learn somewhat more complex layout tricks, stuff like bariolage, more complex harp notation, some more complex percussion layout (single percussionist with multiple instruments… what do we call that? percussionist polygamy?), and the use of some free rhythm bars here and there.

And it’s all been FUN! rather than frustrating.

So thank-you to Daniel and the team at Dorico. The first performance will be dedicated to you.

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Congratulations! What orchestra is it?

for the time being, I’d rather wait until there is a confirmation that it will be programmed before naming names.

here in Quebec, there is a serious issue with arts funding, there unfortunately remains the very unfortunate possibility that arts funding could be significantly cut between now and then, which would affect concert seasons.

For example, Yannik Nézet-Séguin’s Montreal orchestra, the Orchestre Métropolitain, has had to cancel two concerts because of a significant drop in their funding this season.

I know. Quite shocking I thought! We’ll keep our fingers crossed for you then!

Great news! Congratulation for this new achievement, @Michel_Edward .
I wish much success for you new Concerto-Rhapsody!!!

It would be interesting if you could share some screenshots, or details on how you was able to overcome some challenges while composing/engraving it :slight_smile: (if you wish, of course)

@Christian_R of course! I’ll take a couple slices of a few little spots that were (at first) problematic for me.
They are, obviously, less problematic now!

here’s a few spots I had a tiny bit of trouble with at the time. I’m more familiar with Dorico now and have less trouble, but back then it was a bit more of a challenge. Also, if I recall, this was version 3.5? so still missing a few of the really great updated features.

This is one I do wish Dorico would do a tiny bit more easily natively.
I often require a single bracket for my percussionists, that says 1, 2, or 3 players, and that is placed to the left of the instrument names. A number of work-arounds have been suggested, but most have some down sides. I ended up settling on just using the bracket on the 1st page (I’d rather have the bracket on all pages.)

then there was this, which was a bit of a challenge, mostly because of playback. I had to select which instrument was to be muted (either the snare or the woodblock) when they shared a stem/beam combo.

and finally, the challenge of writing bariolage:


Hidden triplets, beams, numbers, brackets… oh the headaches! LOL I got it done eventually and started getting the hang of it.

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Congratulations @Michel_Edward Very happy for you!

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Congratulations!

It would be interesting to hear how you did the large structure of the project and other bits, such as …

  • How do you use the Flows? How many, what do they correspond to?
  • What’s the score structure? Do you have a full, conductors, condensed or what exactly?
  • Did you do the extraneous pages, such as a cover, title, explanatory and the like?
  • Fonts?
  • How important was playback, did you use it for temps for anybody? What VST’s did you use?

Thanks and congratulations!

hello @DanMcL ,

To answer quickly a few of your questions:

  1. I actually composed it as a single flow. The concerto-Rhapsody is played as one continuous movement without pause, each section flowing into the next.
  2. I have a full score which is condensed, a piano reduction with soloist, and one version that is the full uncondensed score +piano, which I used while creating that piano reduction.
  3. Title pages, and frontispice pages I always create in an other software intended specifically for that purpose. The house style has a set score cover page, inside cover page, parts cover page, and frontispiece pages (details, program notes if any, movements listed, instrumentation details, etc…)
  4. The music font is the one that Dorico comes with, but for text I use Nepomuk and its variants (italic, bold, etc…)
  5. Playback is always important in that I am always asked for for some sort of demo tape, and am fully aware that the more realistic the sound the better the first impression.
    That said, I’ve had the least trouble, and the best results, with NotePerformer3.
    I’d love to find a good solo string library that doesn’t cost the soul of a loved one sacrificed to the first blood moon, but so far, I have honestly not been impressed with anything I’ve heard.
    The only library I liked for solo strings was the old XSamples Chamber Ensemble. But they seem to have changed hands, or at least radically changed their way of doing things, and I am not convinced that XCE now works with Dorico (the older version worked beautifully in Finale.)
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Thanks, interesting to see how you did it.

Yeah strings are tough. While not a solo library I have found BBCSO to be my favorite. I don’t have an extensive collection so don’t take that as expert opinion. You can get the Core edition pretty inexpensively.