No workaround. You will have to update to Finale 27. With the new pricing, you will only pay $99 for the upgrade.

https://store.makemusic.com/Store/default.aspx?tab=notation?utm_source=finalemusic&utm_medium=site&utm_campaign=new_price_2022&utm_content=price_announcement_homepage_banner&_ga=2.137214196.515011514.1666023367-1538971137.1662818244

great.

Songwriter is a 32bit app over 11 years old and was discontinued a few years before MacOS Catalina rendered all 32bit apps incompatible (four years ago next month).

Otherwise, what MikeR has posted. It looks like you are going to have to go the full-featured version with Support for a nominal upgrade price. The good news is that Catalina is one of the supported operating systems for Finale 27. Your Songwriter files should just open up but, if there are problems, MM Support will help and we usually know the solution as well.

macOS:

• 10.14 Mojave/10.15 Catalina/macOS 11 Big Sur/OS 12 Monterey, Intel-Based processors and Apple Silicon M1/M2

• 4 GB RAM Minimum.

•      1280x800 minimum monitor resolution.

•  

.

Still would have been nice to be able to open the software as it was.  Thanks.

Again, your problem is with Apple. There are no 32bit applications that open in Catalina or later and there are no workarounds. Many apps have never provided a workaround or upgrade. Finale does.