Carter Brey, Principal Cellist, New York Philharmonic

“… I’ve written a couple of encore pieces for solo cello which I’ve printed with LilyPond and which I’m going to submit to Schirmer for publication. I’ll bet their engraved version wouldn’t look half as sharp as mine!”

Orm Finnendahl, professor of Composition, Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main

“Although I don’t know [LilyPond] very well yet, I’m *very impressed. I used the program to input a motet of Josquin Desprez in mensural notation and there’s no doubt that lilypond outscores all other notation programs easily concerning speed, ease of use and look!”

Darius Blasband, composer (Brussels, Belgium)

“[..after the first orchestra rehearsal] I got numerous compliments about the quality of the scores. Even more importantly, while LilyPond provides numerous hacks to improve the way its scores look, what the orchestra got from me is basically the raw, untouched output.”

Kieren MacMillan, composer (Toronto, Canada)

“thanks and kudos to the development team for their incredible work. I’ve never seen anything approaching the output that I get from LilyPond – I’m totally confident that my music publishing needs will be fulfilled beyond my expectations using this great application. […] basically untweaked LilyPond output […] looks better than most recent ‘professional’ publications I’ve compared it to (q.v., just about any Warner Bros. score, and even many of the most recent by ‘the old houses’). […]” “Beat that, Finale/Sibelius/Igor/whatever!!!”

Chris Cannam, lead programmer of the RoseGarden project

“LilyPond is obviously the zillion-ton gorilla [of great music typesetting].”

Chris Snyder, Adoro Music Publishing

“The way that music is entered for LilyPond causes me to think in a more musical way – there have been times when I’ve been stumped as to how to tell Lily to engrave something, only to realize that even if I did get it exactly as the composer wanted, the music would be confusing to read. LilyPond makes it much easier for me to work in my dual editor+engraver role.”

“I’ve been using LilyPond exclusively for my fledgling music publishing business. Virtually without exception, every composer has been blown away by the quality of the engraving when presented with the proofs of their music about to be published. I deserve some of the credit for this – I spend a lot of time tweaking output, especially ties (mainly in chords) – but LilyPond gives me an excellent starting point, a very intuitive interface, and the ability to modify absolutely anything if I want to take the time. I’m convinced that no commercial product can come close.”

David Bobroff, Bass Trombone, Iceland Symphony Orchestra

“I think LilyPond is great […] The more I learn about LilyPond the more I like it!”

Vaylor Trucks, Electric guitar player (Yes, related to)

“I am super impressed with LilyPond […]”

“THIS IS THE BEST PROGRAM EVER!!!”

“Thank you all SO MUCH for your hard work and dedication!”

Nicolas Sceaux, Mutopia contributor

“I had a kind of hate-passion relationship with it. Passion because the first score I saw was so amazing! The description of LilyPond lies about its beautifulness, it is too modest! […] as LilyPond is getting always better, and as I look closer how things are done in scheme, I have less and less frustrations. Anyway, what I mean is: thank you for providing LilyPond, it is really good.”

Werner Lemberg, Conductor at the Theater in Koblenz, Germany and distinguished GNU Hacker

“Anyway, LilyPond does an amazingly good job!”

Paul Davis, developer of JACK and Ardour

“I think [LilyPond is] an incredible program, and it produces wonderful, wonderful output. when i read an interview about it last year, i was raving to several friends of mine about its potential.”

Dr. Mika Kuuskankare, researcher at the Sibelius Academy Finland, composer and author of Expressive Notation Package (ENP)

“I have the deepest respect towards LilyPond and towards its creators and maintainers as I know from personal experience how difficult this kind of software can be.”

David Cameron, Musician, professional typesetter and long time SCORE user

“My heartfelt thanks to everyone who contributes to this project. I was a power SCORE user for big typesetting houses way back in the ’90s, but I feel LilyPond finally makes it possible for me to get exactly what I want on the page, especially when it isn’t "standard" practice.”