He has a ghostly presence around Yale because he used to play in the First Church and hang out in the bars on Temple Street. He's very much a Connecticut kind of spirit and a very inspiring one. I think he makes musicians proud to be a part of the American musical tradition from which he comes. One of the things that is so complicated about being a teacher, and especially a teacher of composition, is that you end up thinking about the problems of your students. I've even dreamt solutions to my students problems.
Good teachers do that.
That's what teachers are supposed to do, but this gives me a chance to be my own teacher, my own dreamer. It must be noted that Bresnick goes well beyond what good teachers do, as he is well known for inspiring the strongest collegial commitment to excellence in teaching and performance. One is something which I was planning toward and trying to help stimulate interest in, and it looks like it will happen. It's a piano concerto movie. It's not a movie with a piano player in it, but a movie about the works of William Blake, which is also simultaneously a piano concerto.