Kjartan Ólafsson (born 18 November 1958) is an Icelandic musicologist, composer, and academic. He is the creator of the composing software CALMUS, has worked on the use of artificial intelligence in classical music composition, and is associated with Smartbandið.^[1]

A native of Reykjavík, Kjartan Ólafsson studied music, composition, and natural sciences from 1976 to 1989 at the Music College of Kópavogur, Hamrahliðar College, Reykjavík College of Music, Utrecht Conservatory, and Sibelius Academy.^[2] From 1985 to 1986, he was a member of the short-lived band Smartbandið, where he wrote the song Lalíf, which topped the Icelandic charts for several weeks in 1986.^[3]

In 1985, he received an award in the Icelandic Radio Competition for young composers and, in the near-quarter-century since, has lectured and held seminars at venues including the University of Iceland (1990), Reykjavík 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 Reykjavík'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. In 2002, he traveled to the United States to lecture at New York University regarding the use of CALMUS for algorithmic composing, a subject he updated with lectures at the 2008 Salzburg Mozarteum. Having taught music in the early 1990s at the Reykjavik College of Music, Kjartan has held the position of Professor of Composition and Theory at Iceland Academy of the Arts since 2005.

References include Kjartan Ólafsson's professional website, which features photographs, a career outline, and lists of his compositions, books, articles, and reviews. Additional sources comprise an Icelandic-language biographical write-up and description of his compositions, along with the Icelandic Academy of Arts website.