Yehudi Wyner (b.1929) has composed over 100 works for orchestra, chamber ensemble, solo voice and solo instruments, piano, chorus, and music for the theater, as well as liturgical services for worship.  He has also had an active career as a solo pianist, chamber musicians, teacher, director of two opera companies, and conductor of chamber and vocal ensembles. He has been keyboard artist of the Bach Aria Group since 1968, and was on the chamber music faculty of the Boston Symphony’s Tanglewood Music Center from 1975-97.

He has been composer-in-residence at NMOP (2014), June in Buffalo (2012), DePaul University (2012), The Shepherd School of Music, Rice University (2012), Civitella Ranieri (2009), the Eastman School of Music (2008), Vassar College (2007), the Atlantic Center for the Arts (2005), the Rockefeller Center at Bellagio, Italy (1998), the American Academy in Rome (1991), and at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival (1982).

Wyner was a Professor at the Yale University School of Music from 1963-1977. He became Dean of the Music Division at State University of New York, Purchase, in 1978, where he was a Professor for twelve years. A guest Professor at Cornell University in 1988, he has also been a frequent Visiting Professor at Harvard University since 1991. From 1991-2005, he held the Walter W. Naumburg Chair of Composition at Brandeis University, where he is now Professor Emeritus.

Born in Western Canada, Yehudi Wyner grew up in New York City. He came into a musical family and was trained early as pianist and composer.  His father, Lazar Weiner, was the preeminent composer of Yiddish Art Song as well as a notable creator of liturgical music for the modern synagogue. After graduating from the Juilliard School with a Diploma in piano, Yehudi Wyner went on to study at Yale and Harvard Universities with composers Paul Hindemith, Richard Donovan, and Walter Piston.  In 1953, he won the Rome Prize in Composition enabling him to live for the next three years at the American Academy in Rome, composing, playing, and traveling. He is married to conductor and former soprano Susan Davenny Wyner.