Silvio Hein (May 15, 1879-December 19, 1928) was a composer in the Jazz Age and an early believer in copyright protection.
Hein was born in New York City as the second son of Victor and Irene Hein, Austrian and Italian immigrants. As a boy, he was sent to Europe, where he worked and studied in Vienna and Trieste.
He was a teen when he composed his first operetta. At the age of 22 he wrote the top seller Every Morn I Bring Thee Violets. From 1905 to 1922 he mainly composed musicals for Broadway. Probably his best known and most popular work was He’s A Cousin Of Mine (1906).
Hein was elected to The Lambs in 1906. The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) was founded in 1914 and Hein was one of the founders. Six of the nine founding members were Lambs: Nathan Burkan, Hein, Victor Herbert, Raymond Hubbell, Gustave A. Kerker, and Glen McDonough.
With ASCAP, he was chairman and a board member.
Hein suffered from a chronic lung infection from his mid-twenties. At the age of 46 he had to stop working for the stage. He spent his final years at the Good Samaritan Sanatorium in Saranac Lake. Hein was interred in the Cemetery of the Evergreens in Brooklyn, burial ground for scores of actors and musicians.