Kjartan Ólafsson (b.1958) is an Icelandic musicologist, composer and academic notable as creator of the composing software CALMUS, as well as an authority on artificial intelligence in classical music composition. A native of Reykjavik, he spent from 1976 to 1989 studying music, composition and natural sciences at the Music College of Kopavogur, Hamrahliðar College, Reykjavík College of Music, Utrecht Conservatory and Sibelius Academy.
In 1985 he received an award in the Icelandic Radio Competition for young composers and, in the near-quarter-century since, has been lecturing and holding seminars at such venues as the University of Iceland (1990), Reykjavik College of Music (1991–93), Sibelius Academy (1992), Finland’s Avanti Summer Festival in Porvoo and Denmark’s International Computer Music Conference in Aarhus (both 1994). In 2000, in connection with Reykjavik’s status as the millennial and century year’s European Culture City, he served as director of Icelandic Music in 100 Years, which became the largest festival of the country’s music held up to that moment.