Morodiene, great advices as always! I've been looking at the composer cloud option for EW too and can't find any fault in it. I'm wondering, what's the catch? Is there any? Do I have complete access to all their products? How do I access the library, is it always through Internet, probably laggy and so only exports can be done and not real time playing?

As to listening to music and consulting the scores, that has always been the best advice and actually what I've done all my life with piano music - classical and jazz. My interest in symphonic music is rather new. It all started with Bruckner symphonies 7-8 years ago and I've gradually added to that Mahler, Sibelius, Shostakovich, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Debussy, Brahms, Richard Strauss, Respighi, Korsakov... And so many more Yet, I still prefer having a systematic (academic) approach in addition to that, so the two books of Korsakov and Piston I've ordered will hopefully add to that.

Don't forget Ravel! Master orchestrator.

RE: Composer Cloud, you download the files to your computer, so once they are on there is no internet lag to deal with. You have access to all of their products, but only up to Gold level (which I have). The Diamond stuff only adds more mics, but I've heard awesome stuff done just with Gold. If you stop CC for a month or whatever, you will not be able to "play" these files in your DAW unless you start up again or purchase the software, so I recommend being sure you're done with a project and exporting to wav format prior to canceling.

RE: VSL, I had a friend who let me borrow it once. Everything is SUPER dry, so it takes a lot of massaging to get a normal sound. Not saying it's impossible, but it is more difficult to work with as a result.

All software depends on what your plans are: Do you want to record it as realistically as possible for people to listen to? Do you just want to make mock-ups of your music for the purposes of presenting to a conductor to have it performed by live musicians? Or both?

Personally, I use Finale to compose in and create scores that are well-edited for possible live performances, but I render in VI's for the purposes of getting my music heard. It's a bit of double-duty, but it's much harder to compose well with proper part-writing if you only jump into recording without writing out the score. That's just me, though.

This is about as good as Bruckner gets. Bruckner Symphony No 8 Celibidache Münchner Philharmoniker Live Tokyo 20 Oct 1990:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elVHvTrEM34

Sounds good despite the terrible youtube compression. Find a copy of the CD original or rerelase (sublime performance and good recording). It was also sold in a few video formats.

CyberGene, you can finish reading such a book in a few days, or even in a few hours(depends on how fast you read), and all you'll get is theoretic terms, and years of practical training in front of you.
Formal training is not just literal theory, you as a jazz pianist know that already.
Not that I underestimate theory.
And I strongly recommend you to get my advice and to research furthermore about the differences between real orchestrations and MIDI orchestral mock ups productions.

Sure I forgot him! As a matter of fact I finished three different complete Ravel’s orchestral integrals a week ago There are so many others, I just can’t list them all. But if I have to choose two of them it would be Sibelius and Shostakovich, especially their menacing brass sound However purely in musical terms my favorite symphony is the sixth by Tchaikovsky, nothing betters it!

I've never heard Walton Piston before and it would be strange to "believe" someone's book of orchestration if you don't believe he's good enough. So, I searched for his music and discovered a record of his Sixth Symphony with Charles Münch and BSO from 1957, RCA Victor. The symphony was written for BSO's anniversary and I believe that was its inaugural recording.

It is sublime! Yes, this guy knows about orchestration! And about music. Although it reminds me Shostakovich, that's not by itself bad since Shostakovich is in my top 3 favorite symphonists. Highly recommended!

Hey,I thought about all I said about learning composition and orchestration.
I hope I didn't sound arrogant.
I'm not talking from a position of a professional or advanced.
I'm just a humble student of composition, learning from a private teacher harmony.
And he teaches me orchestration also, at least what can be learnt about orchestration without doing experiments on a real orchestra(that's a big restriction not to have a real orchestra when studying orchestration...).

And I mainly interested in film music and neoromantic music, by the way.

I really appreciate your advices, I just forgot to reply to your last post, not that it sounded arrogant. Not at all! Thank you and all other people who answered in this thread