Yehudi Wyner has created a diverse body of over 60 works, written for orchestra and chamber ensemble, chorus and voice, solo instrumental works, liturgical settings, as well as music for klezmer ensemble. Recent works include the orchestral works Epilogue (1996), Lyric Harmony (1995), and Prologue and Narrative for Cello and Orchestra (1994, commissioned by the BBC Philharmonic); and the chamber pieces Oboe Quartet (1999), Madrigal for String Quartet (1999), and the Horn Trio (1997). Recent recordings have been released on the New World Records and CRI labels.

Wyner has been commissioned by Carnegie Hall, the Boston Symphony, the BBC Philharmonic, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Library of Congress, and the Koussevitzky and Fromm Foundations. HIs fellowships, awards, and honors include the Rome Prize, the NEA, Guggenheim, and Fulbright, the Institute of Arts and Letters, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's 1998 Elise Stoeger Prize. In 1999, Wyner was elected into the membership of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Among Wyner's most important works is the liturgical piece Friday Evening Service (for cantor and chorus). It was in fact his Friday Evening Service that began his original association with his publisher, AMP. He elaborates, "The circumstances of my initial contact with AMP came about in the spring of 1963, when the premiere of my new Friday Evening Service took place at the Park Avenue Synagogue in New York. The next day, I received a call from a person, then unknown to me, former AMP Director of Publications, Hans Heinsheimer . After identifying himself, he said that Samuel Barber had attended the premiere and urged Heinsheimer to be in touch with me to discuss a possible publishing relationship. Of course I was astonished!"

The Canadian-born Wyner (who originally hails from Calgary, Alberta) was raised in New York City, where he attended the Juilliard School and received formal training as a pianist. Wyner followed this training with compositional studies at Yale under Paul Hindemith, and continued at Harvard under the tutelage of Randall Thompson and Walter Piston. Having been known throughout his career as a distinctly "American" composer, Wyner has also enjoyed a concert career as a soloist, and as an ensemble member and conductor of the Bach Aria Group. Wyner currently holds the Naumburg Chair of Composition at Brandeis University. He is a frequent visiting professor at Harvard, and has held previous faculty positions at Yale and the Tanglewood Music Center. Wyner also served as Dean of Music at the Purchase campus of the State University of New York.