Finale, Software That Typeset The Music of Broadway For Decades, Shuts Down

You probably didn't hear about it, but the people that made the music of Broadway come to life in the pit all woke up with anxiety this morning as MakeMusic (formerly known as Coda Music Technologies) announced that effective immediately the music notation program known as Finale would shut down operations. The company will begin selling Dorico, a product made by Steinberg, a subsidiary of Yamaha - who also make a popular music making software called Cubase.

MakeMusic will no longer release any updates for Finale or its associated tools (PrintMusic, Notepad, Songwriter), and by August 2025 it will be impossible to install or authorize finale on any new devices.

The news shocked the industry, in which Finale was the standard for decades for crisp, computerized music notation. The software also allows users to play back their creations in real time using synthesized instruments. Those who have been in the business for decades could have upwards of thousands of files stores in a proprietary Finale format that they would have to figure out how to port to a new program.

For the uninitiated, Finale is able to create the entire score - from the Piano/Conductor score the conductor works from to the individual parts for each instrument in the pit. It allows for quick adjustments in the room - where changes made in rehearsals can be in the pianists book that same day. Changes made during rehearsals in previews can be in the show as soon as the pages are printed.

While Finale is able to export files as midi or MusicXML, much of the original work and typesetting would be lost in translation to new software.

While alternatives like Avid's Sibelius have been finding their way into Broadway rehearsal rooms with Finale falling out of favor somewhat in recent years, old titles and many composer's archived works are likely stored in Finale format. While there are competitors, Finale is still used by a large portion of the Broadway community. Grand Hotel was the first Broadway musical to use computer-assisted notation in 1989.

A small sample of Broadway productions or revivals which used Finale for their original typesetting include Beauty And The Beast, The Secret Garden, Jelly’s Last Jam, The Goodbye Girl, How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, The King And I, Little Shop Of Horrors, Bring In Da Noise Bring In Da Funk, Flower Drum Song, The Boys From Syracuse, Once Upon A Mattress, Titanic, The Scarlet Pimpernel, The Music Man, Footloose, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Little Mermaid, Young Frankenstein, Oklahoma, Aida, 42nd Street, The Producers, The Sound Of Music, and Wicked.

Charlie Rosen, whose Broadway credits include Some Like It Hot, Moulin Rouge, A Strange Loop, Be More Chill, Prince of Broadway, amongst others wrote on Instagram "There goes Broadway's entire music workflow! I've been using Finale for the last 20 years." He also noted he would have to keep a computer running with the current version of Finale to access old files, implying in perpetuity.

As Broadway licensing companies move more towards providing materials on demand vs. a vast library of books mailed out and returned for reuse - scores stored in Finale format will certainly need adjusting and preservation to be useable in new notation programs.