Ben Olsen was born on the 28th day of October, 1928 in Independence, Missouri.

While working towards a Bachelor's degree in musical composition at the Kansas City Conservatory of Music (now the University of Missouri – Kansas City), Ben composed his First Piano Sonata, which was performed at the American Symposium of Composers in Cincinatti, Ohio.

In 1989, Ben Olsen passed away in San Francisco, California, leaving behind more than 140 musical compositions. While some of Ben's works were performed by full orchestras, Ben was a pragmatic man and thus, the majority of his works are songs for voice and piano, solo piano, and chamber ensembles.

Ben Olsen was a modern contemporary composer, and in his latter years, composed new arrangements of traditional American classics, injected with his own humor and nostalgia from what it was like to be a Gay American in the 1950's.

The mission of the Ben Olsen Music Foundation is to share Ben's music with the world.

This site hosts photoscans of originals written in Ben's hand, as well as selected published scores which can be downloaded for free. We are encouraging contributors to self-publish his scores and share performances and recordings of Ben's music. In posting digital photos of Ben's original manuscripts and original copies, we expect to maintain the integrity of the composer's work without restricting access or copyright permissions.

Apologies to all for the large file sizes. The intent is to preserve data, and due to the condition of most original manuscripts and copies, it can be very difficult to see some of the notation without magnification. Attempts were made to adjust brightness and contrast of oversized orchestral scores which were digitally photographed.