Michael Olsen
President/Chief Executive Officer

Compendia Music Group

As President/Chief Operating Officer of Compendia Music Group, Michael Olsen is overseeing Compendia Music Group and directs day-to-day operations and financial affairs.

A 20-year veteran of the entertainment industry, Olsen joined Compendia Music Group after serving as President of CampusVibe, a web-based music and entertainment company.

Olsen got his start in the entertainment business in the late 1970s as a lighting designer and production manager for musical and theatrical projects at the Yale Repertory Theatre, the New York City Opera, the Julliard School, the Opera Company of Boston, the Asolo State Theatre, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, and Fey Concerts in Denver. In 1980, he became a full-time member of the faculty of Yale University, teaching in the MFA program at the School of Drama. In 1983, he joined the Denver Symphony Orchestra and was later named Vice President and General Manager where he led all artistic issues, programming, marketing, and sales.

The Symphony prospered under Olsen’s new ideas and leadership, which included booking, producing, and promoting more than 150 mass-appeal concerts a year. Many of the hugely successful events were held in stadiums, where the Symphony was featured with popular artists including the Beach Boys, Itzhak Perlman, Jimmy Buffett, Wynton Marsalis, and John Denver.

Olsen joined the record business in 1988 after negotiating the Orchestra’s first recording contract with Intersound Records, which recruited him to become its head of Classical A&R.

Over the next decade, Olsen helped lead the growth of Intersound’s retail sales from $5 million to $50 million. What had been a strictly classical record label expanded to six highly profitable genres – classical, gospel, urban, country, and new age – featuring such artists as Crystal Gayle, The Ohio Players, Chuck Mangione, Kansas, The Bellamy Brothers, Jennifer Holliday, and Vicki Winans. By 1997, Olsen helped orchestrate the sale of Intersound to Platinum Entertainment. After the companies merged, he oversaw A&R and business affairs as Executive Vice President and remained with the company until 1999 when he left to join CampusVibe.com.

Olsen graduated Magna Cum Laude from Georgia State University School of Law, is a member of the State Bar of Georgia, and has taught music law at the Georgia State University School of Music. He is also a former member of the Board of Governors of the Atlanta chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (NARAS).