On March 27, 1827, the day following Beethoven’s death, a young Jewish musician named Ferdinand Hiller yanked a lock of hair with roots attached from the head of Beethoven’s corpse. These 582 strands of the master’s tresses would come to be known as the Guevara Lock of Beethoven’s Hair. The treasured relic was given to Hiller’s son Paul as a birthday gift on May 1, 1883. A conservator in Cologne examined the hair in 1911 and resealed it in a wooden framed locket with an inscription by Paul Hiller placed underneath the glass backing. There is no exact account of what happened to the framed lock of hair until it was given to Dr. Kay Alexander Fremming, a doctor living in Gilleleje, Denmark, as a payment or gift for his assistance to Danish Jews escaping to safety in Sweden during World War II. It is believed that Paul Hiller gave the hair to one of his three sons before his death in 1934. The Fremming family sold the locket at a Sotheby’s auction in London on Dec. 1, 1994. Four members of the American Beethoven Society (Ira F. Brilliant, Caroline Crummey, Alfredo Guevara, and Thomas Wendel) purchased the hair for £3,600. One year later the locket was opened under laboratory conditions and 160 of the 582 strands were extracted for Guevara to keep. In 1996 the remaining 422 strands, along with the frame and documents from inside the locket, was donated to the Ira F. Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies while scientific testing began on a few strands from Guevara’s share of the hair. Later in 1998 Publisher’s Weekly reported that Broadway Books editor-in-chief John Sterling bought the world rights to Russell Martin’s nonfiction account of the Guevara lock of Beethoven’s hair. The book deal was rumored to be just over a mid-six-figure sum. A statement from Dr. William J. Walsh from the Health Research Institute and Pfeiffer Treatment Center was released on October 17, 2000 that revealed evidence that Beethoven had plumbism (lead poisoning) which may have caused his life-long illnesses, impacted his personality, and possibly contributed to his death. In addition, a DNA analysis by LabCorp Corporation defined a significant portion of Beethoven's genetic make-up to be used in future research. The musical material for this piece is based upon a small fragment of Ferdinand Schimon’s portrait of Beethoven painted between 1818 and 1819 provided to me by conceptual artist Charles Gute. In the early 1990s, Gute exhibited various works that displayed an unrestrained obsession for Beethoven, from fervent fandom to full-fledged fetishism. Pieces like Beethoven Objectified Epiphany Series and Beethoven Needlepoint Quotations led to the Beethoven’s Portrait, Hair Detail Series in which Gute reproduces details of the composer’s famously long and tortured hair from seven separate portraits by now-forgotten 19th century German painters. After viewing the hair detail series I asked the artist, also a friend, to provide me with the schematic used to create the needlepoint representation from my favorite image. The piece was commissioned by Essential Music. 20 July 2006 The Stone, New York City 19 July 2006 Arium, New York City 6 November 2005 Corcoran Gallery, Washington DC 13 October 2005 Symphony Space, Thalia, New York City 13 June 2005 Cornelia Street Cafe, New York City 15 April 2005 New Music Miami ISCM Festival 1 December 2004 Italian Academy, New York City 4 June 2003 Spoleto Festival USA, Charlston SC 9 April 2002 Angel Orensanz Center, New York City