NAMM 2025: On the scene

All this week, we’ll be publishing posts from the 2025 NAMM Show in Anaheim, California. It’s a huge exhibition, so we’ll focus on what we do best: covering the field of music notation software and related technology. Follow all of our NAMM 2025 coverage at Scoring Notes, and on our social media accounts on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

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Welcome back to NAMM!

Here at the 2025 NAMM Show, I took the better part of yesterday to just roam around the Anaheim Convention Center, get a sense of the overall show this year, visit with some colleagues, and try to see as many of the new and interesting products, services, and exhibits — all the while clocking some serious mileage on foot.

One benefit of traveling from the east coast is getting up to see the sun rise here in the west. This is Hotel Way looking south; on the right (to the west) is the Hilton Anaheim, where lots of events take place. Beyond that, further to the west would be the Anaheim Convention Center, where most of the action happens.

The previous day I arrived with enough time to catch the Moises Live happy hour, an event intended to showcase the forthcoming product that aims to “instantly adjust vocals, instruments, cinematic audio, and more, at the system level for any app.” I ran into Oriol López Calle, the founder of My Sheet Music Transcriptions. We had already scheduled an interview and I’ll be talking with Oriol more at NAMM very soon.

 

Before I even entered the hall, I stopped to hear the Mariachi Divas, an all-female mariachi band founded in 1999 and led by Cindy Shea. In a “worlds collide” moment, one of the members of the band is Anglea Romero Anderson, whose husband Brent Anderson is an orchestral librarian for several ensembles in Southern California.

Then, onto the show!

Entering the hall I was accompanied by the aforementioned Mariachi Divas:

 

Then of course, my first stop was — where else? — the United States Postal Service, where I met with Kari Levasseur and talked about the benefits of shipping music with USPS.

 

Heath Mathews and Conner Lewis from MakeMusic and Alfred Music talked about their customers, dealers, educators, how they offer something across a number of constituencies — and, yes, we reminisced about Finale.

 

Onto the Muse Group / Hal Leonard booth, the second show at NAMM since they became one company, where I caught up with Bob Chreste and learned more about MuseClass.

 

From there, I visited with Shannon Moore and Brandon Wilkins from Vienna Symphonic Library, who talked about some of the new offerings from their sample libraries and also how to use them more easily directly in notation software like Sibelius and Dorico.

 

Dorico returned to NAMM this year with a dedicated presence in the form of the peripatetic John Barron, and he told me about fielding questions from customers about Dorico and the changes in the music notation field that may lead to new users migrating from other software.

 

I then caught up with Avid’s Sam Butler and Boris Prell to report on Avid’s presence at NAMM, its customer base, and upcoming Sibelius updates.

 

Among others, here are the companies and exhibits I’ve visited. Today (Saturday) is the last day of exhibits, so if you’re at the show, make a plan to stop by:

• Qualcomm (Moises) (Hall A: 11410)
• Native Instruments (Hall A: 12110)
• Alfred Music / MakeMusic (Hall B: 8902)
• Muse Group / Hal Leonard (Hall B: 9114)
• ILIO (Hall B: 9310)
• United States Postal Service (Hall C: 7807)
• Yamaha (Level 3: 300DE)
• Avid (ACC North Level 1: 15000 / 15102)
• Dreamtonics (ACC North Level 1: 15623)
• PreSonus (ACC North Level 1: 15304)

Keep coming back to Scoring Notes for more coverage from the 2025 NAMM Show, especially some more in-depth interviews with the interesting people in our field, and follow Scoring Notes on our social media: Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.