William Otto Miessner (1880-1967) was born in Huntingburg, Indiana. He studied at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, in New York, and in Berlin. He was a composition student of Edgar Stillman Kelley. He taught music in Boonville and Connersville, Indiana, where the school band at Connersville High School was the first public high school band in the United States. He was the director of the music schools of Milwaukee State Teachers College and founded the Miessner Institute of Music in Milwaukee. He later became head of the Department of Music Education at the University of Kansas. He was an editor for Silver, Burdett and Company and president of the Miessner Piano Company in Milwaukee. He died in Connersville. His compositions include pedagogical works, piano pieces, songs, and choral pieces.

All are mixed chorus unless noted; some contain divisi.