His high school music theory teacher took notice of his abilities, and introduced him to Irving Fine, who was a composition professor at Harvard University at the time.
His role as advisor was to assist Muti in identifying new works for the Philadelphia Orchestra to perform, with a stated emphasis on American composers.
[8] Harmonic analysis of Wernick's work suggests that his style makes reference to tonal harmony, but is usually based on fixed cells of intervals.
Kaddish Requiem mourns "the victims of Indochina," referring to the contemporaneous Vietnam War as well as to related violence throughout the region.
[6] Likewise, the final movement of his Duo for Cello and Piano is a memorial for the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001.
Several of his works, most notably Kaddish Requiem and Visions of Terror and Wonder, combine religious texts from multiple traditions.
[2][6] The majority of Wernick's works are published by the Theodore Presser Company[9] Most of his manuscripts are held by the Special Collections of the Van Pelt Library at the University of Pennsylvania.
Wernick's works were represented on some of the earliest releases by Bridge Records, a label founded by guitarist David Starobin.