Yehudi Wyner, professor emeritus of music composition, elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

Wyner is also 2006 Pulitzer Prize winner

Waltham, MA – The American Academy of Arts & Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies and independent policy research centers, today announced the election of a new class of members. Drawn from the sciences, the arts and humanities, business, public affairs, and the nonprofit sector, the 190 new Fellows and 22 Foreign Honorary Members are leaders in their fields and include Nobel laureates and recipients of Pulitzer and Pritzker prizes, Academy and Grammy awards, and Kennedy Center Honors.

Among those elected is Yehudi Wyner, Walter W. Naumburg Professor of Composition, Emeritus at Brandeis University.

“The Academy honors excellence by electing to membership remarkable men and women who have made preeminent contributions to their fields, and to the world,” said Academy President Emilio Bizzi.

According to Professor Wyner, his main objective is simple: “to write the best, the most personal, and the most communicative music I can and to play the music of others with clarity and eloquence.” His other accolades  include the Pulitzer Prize in Music in 2006 for his “Piano Concerto: 'Chiavi in Mano'”.

The 212 scholars, scientists, artists, civic, corporate and philanthropic leaders come from 20 states and 15 countries, and range in age from 37 to 86. Represented among this year’s newly elected members are more than 50 universities and more than a dozen corporations, as well as museums, national laboratories and private research institutes, media outlets and foundations.

“We are pleased to welcome into the Academy these new members to help advance our founders’ goal of ‘cherishing knowledge and shaping the future,’” said Bizzi.

An independent policy research center, the Academy undertakes studies of complex and emerging problems. Its diverse membership of scholars and practitioners from many disciplines and professions gives the Academy a unique capacity to conduct a wide range of interdisciplinary, long-term policy research. Current studies focus on science, technology and global security; social policy and American institutions; the humanities and culture; and education.

“For 228 years, the Academy has served the public good by convening leading thinkers and doers from diverse perspectives to examine – and provide practical policy solutions to -- the pressing issues of the day,” added Chief Executive Officer and William T. Golden Chair Leslie Berlowitz. “I am confident that this distinguished class of new members will continue that tradition.”


The new class will be inducted at a ceremony on October 11, at the Academy’s headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Founded in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock and other scholar-patriots, the Academy has elected as members the finest minds and most influential leaders from each generation, including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin in the eighteenth century, Daniel Webster and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the nineteenth, and Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill in the twentieth. The current membership includes some 200 Nobel laureates and more than 60 Pulitzer Prize winners.