On today’s date in 2011, the Saint Louis Symphony under David Robertson premiered a new piano concerto by the American composer Steve Mackey. The soloist was Orli Shaham, Robertson’s wife, to whom the new work was dedicated.

The new concerto had an odd title, “Stumble to Grace,” which Mackey explained:

“There is a narrative running through the piece … the piano is all thumbs … as it stumbles in its first entrance, playing naïve and awkward plinks and plunks. By [the end], the piano plays sophisticated, virtuosic and, at times, graceful contrapuntal music—a fugue, in fact …

“The inspiration … came from observing my now two-and-a-half year old toddler learning to become human … when he was first experimenting with perambulation, and now a year later there is a confident lilt to his step … I wanted to open my compositional process to incorporate some of the whimsy and exuberance that he brings to his exploration of the world. Among his first phrases was ‘this, there’ spoken as he tried to insert a square peg into a round hole.”

Mackey concludes, “A preoccupation with one’s children is common among most new parents but this seemed a particularly appropriate … for a piece written for Orli Shaham. She and her conductor husband, David Robertson, have twins less than a year older than my son and we’ve had play dates and shared narrations about new parenthood.”