Richard Wernick was a renowned American composer and Professor Emeritus of Music at the University of Pennsylvania in the School of Arts and Sciences, where he served on the faculty from 1968 to 1996 within the Arts and Culture domain. Born in Boston in 1934, he attended Brandeis University, studying composition with Irving Fine, Harold Shapero, and Arthur Berger. He earned an M.A. from Mills College in 1957, where he worked with Leon Kirchner, and studied conducting with Leonard Bernstein at the Tanglewood Music Center. Before joining Penn as an associate professor of music, Wernick taught at the University at Buffalo and the University of Chicago. At Penn, he advanced to full professor in 1977, chaired the Department of Music for four years, held the Magnin Professor of Humanities and Irvine Fine Professor of Music positions, and directed the Penn Contemporary Players. He worked tirelessly to strengthen programs in musical composition and scholarship, mentoring generations of composers, several of whom became Pulitzer Prize winners.

Wernick's compositional output earned widespread acclaim for its masterful craftsmanship, formal and harmonic complexity, and accessibility, with performances at Carnegie Hall, the Academy of Music, Curtis Institute, the Ravenna Festival, and the Aspen Music Festival. Key honors include the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for Visions of Terror and Wonder, a mezzo-soprano and orchestra piece setting texts from the Old and New Testaments and the Quran; Friedheim Awards for Violin Concerto (1986, tied first place), String Quartet No. 4 (1991, first place), and Piano Concerto (1992, second place); and awards from the Ford, Guggenheim, and Naumburg Foundations. Named 2006 Composer of the Year by the Classical Recording Foundation, his music was extensively recorded. As a conductor, he directed the Winnipeg Ballet, a new-music ensemble at Buffalo, the Philadelphia Orchestra in George Crumb's Star Child (1979), and advised on new works for the orchestra under Riccardo Muti. His archive resides in Penn's Kislak Center for Special Collections.