About Len Solomon and the Bellowphone Show

About the Show

Leonard Solomon has been performing his one-man variety show for over 20 years. He interprets the great musical classics on some of the most bizarre homemade instruments ever seen or heard, and he rounds out the show with a polished ball-juggling routine.

No description can adequately convey the goose-honking and train-whistle cacophony of the Majestic Bellowphone or the sweet piping of the miniature organ, the Callioforte. And music lovers will marvel at their favorite symphonic compositions, arranged by the inscrutable Mr. Solomon for Dog Whistles and Bicycle Horn. Solomon’s classical music training is obvious, as is his craftsmanship and eccentric genius.

The Bellowphone Show has appeared several times on national television, and in venues from Jordan Hall, Boston, to theatres in Singapore and Japan.

A Brief Biography and History
of The Bellowphone Show

Len majored in guitar and early music at Antioch College, and he followed that with a two-year stint with a country-rock band in Idaho. He moved on to Boston to work in cabinet-making and model-making for the next 10 years. Then in 1983, the Majestic Bellowphone was conceived and constructed in his Cambridge basement, and he took it to the street, and took his place among the ranks of classic Harvard Square street acts.

In 1991, Len gained national recognition as a featured performer in the PBS' Lonesome Pine Special's One-Man Band Extravaganza, taped in Louisville KY at the Kentucky Center for the Arts (see video below). The year of 1998 saw Len appear in "A Taste of Passover" in Jordan Hall, Boston, which was also broadcast on national TV; he performed 22 shows in a week-long Festival of the Arts in Singapore; returned to the Kentucky Center for the Arts to appear with physical comedian Tomas Kubinek; and was featured on the experimental music CD “Orbitones, Spoon Harps and Bellowphones”. The following year he was back at Jordan Hall to perform his comedy in the filming of "A Taste of Chanukah" (see video below) and then he was off for the 2-week Tempozan Festival in Osaka, Japan.

Len performed as the "Mad Minstrel", one of the daily acts at King Richard's Faire in Carver, MA in the fall of 2006. He also appears as the "Phenomenon" in the Revel's Circle of Song touring production of "There's a Meeting Here Tonight!"

Performances on video

Len Solomon, performing on the Callioforte and the Bellowphone in "A Taste of Chanukah" at Jordan Hall, Boston, 1999:

Len Solomon, in the same performance at Jordan Hall, juggling:

Len Solomon on PBS' Lonesome Pine Special's One-Man Band Extravaganza, Louisville, Kentucky 1991