PORTRAITS Inventor's gadgets bring stirring music to students 1/15/2004 As 380 elementary school children fidget on the auditorium floor at the Center School in Chelmsford, principal Steve Sylvestri tells them: ''Welcome to another one of our enrichment programs. Today, we're kicking off our science and inventors' fair." A slight, wiry man with graying hair enters from the left door, wearing a jaunty black beret and a colorful scarf. His black wool vest partly covers a red jersey with black stripes, atop black jeans and sneakers. ''I'm afraid we've got a problem," complains the nattily garbed man, Leonard Solomon. ''The sign says, 'Keep off the stage.' What should I do?" The children giggle as Sylvestri assures him that the sign doesn't apply in his case. Visibly relieved, Solomon strides quickly to face the front of the proscenium. He pumps his arms three times and springs upward, landing on the stage, to wild cheers from the children. Solomon then moves to a gizmo consisting of bicycle horns on a stand and honks out a brisk version of ''Reveille." For nearly an hour, he alternates juggling with demonstrations of some odd instruments he created over many years. The children are having too much fun to realize they are learning about the physics behind musical instruments. Solomon plays a riff on the recorder, then explains how this instrument is a close cousin to the pipe organ. ''But instead of one pipe playing many notes, the organ is a set of many pipes that play one note each," he says. Solomon invented the instruments using such everyday components as basketballs, clear plastic tubing, funnels, and aluminum cans. Even their names are whimsical -- for example, the hit of the show is the ''majestic bellowphone," an extravaganza of pipes and horns that Solomon concocted about 15 years ago. Solomon's professional life cannot be easily described by a single category. His lifestyle is a conglomeration of interests that he has woven together since adolescence. The children's show is only one piece of the picture. ''To sum up what I do, I'm an entertainer, but not the ordinary kind," Solomon declares. ''I do straight entertaining for business parties, fairs, and festivals. But I also specialize in educational events for school assemblies. These are entertaining but instructive, because I know a fair amount of music theory and engineering skills." Solomon has performed for audiences of all ages, at venues such as First Night -- in Fall River and Boston -- for more than 20 years. International performances have included weeks in Singapore and Japan. The 52-year-old Solomon said his father was an electrical engineer and ''had no use for music or the arts," while his mother was an artist who encouraged him to play music and be creative. ''Dad said to forget all that and learn math and science," Solomon recalls, ''so I did both." Solomon earned a degree in classical guitar at Antioch College in Ohio, while cultivating his self-taught engineering and math skills. He played full time for a country-western band for his first three years out of college, then spent 10 years as a cabinetmaker, the last five at a shop in Cambridge. During that time, Solomon made a few guitars and dulcimers on the side and honed his juggling skills. During a month's leave of absence, he found he was able to make a living playing on the street, and he never went back to the shop. These days, he finds himself especially busy in the winter, doing library and school shows. When he's not performing, Solomon does what he calls the ''house husband" chores -- shopping, taking care of his children, and running the family's home in Concord. He and his wife of 14 years, Lauren, have two sons, Mathew, 12, and Jacob, 9. ''When I married him, I thought life would be interesting, and that's certainly true," said Lauren, a graphic designer at Millipore Corp. ''We're both artistic and somewhat eccentric, but in different directions." Thanks to his constant tinkering, she said their residence is more of a museum than a house. ''How many living rooms have a microscope and a flywheel on the coffee table?" she asks. The Discovery Museums in Acton commissioned Solomon to build a permanent exhibit in 1998. He came up with the Rubber Ball Music Wall, a tuned series of organ pipes and horns, each made from a different material and played by squeezing a row of rubber balls. Materials for the pipes included wood, dog-food cans, Plexiglas tubing, and a peanut-butter jar. The device is still in constant use. One of Solomon's sidelines is building prototypes and odd machinery. Recently, he was asked to create a device to focus a customized digital camera from a 10-foot boom with a flexible linkage. ''I had to make mechanical drawings, do math, and order special items," he says. ''We finished it a couple weeks ago, and [the photographer] is really happy with it. We call it 'the focusing gizmo.' " Solomon has his eye on publishing a book he has written, consisting of sketches and humorous observations from his life. The working title is from a story involving his younger son: ''Papa, Did We Break It?" NANCY V. BURNS Portraits is an occasional series profiling people going about their daily lives in the region. (c) Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company. Homepage | Look at a Video | Listen to a Voice Sample | All Content and Artwork Copyright 2007/Nancy Burns. Site Designed by Wisman Cronin Creative