Lord of the Yum Yum’s spoof and tribute to symphonic music

Lord of the Yum Yum shows are overwhelming.

Each starts with Paul Velat, an elementary-school music teacher, coiled under a satin sheet, wearing either a baby-blue or bright-red tuxedo. Rising to face the audience, Velat uses his voice to create the foundation for a piece of music.

He loops the first strand using a digital-effects pedal. He then creates another strand and loops it, and repeats the process until he’s dashing about in a frenzy, having single-handedly reconstructed “Ode to Joy,” “Flight of the Bumblebee,” or even the heart-extraction scene from “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.”

Born of Velat’s graduate-school desire to both honor and poke fun at symphonic music, the show is a 15- or 20-minute whirlwind that leaves performer and audience exhausted. Velat’s compositions are complex and choreographed, but he rehearses very little of what he performs.

“I practice the hooks, and that’s about it, like a jazz musician would practice the heads of a chart. I practice that way, then I decide the formal design of the improvisation the night of the show,” said Velat, who will perform two free shows this weekend at Central Library.

Ironically, Velat didn’t enjoy the music lessons he was forced to take as a child, but now he’s the one doling out the punishment as the music instructor at St. Pius Elementary School in Lombard, Ill. “I teach songs out of the book and have games, and I take care of the Christmas show and all of that. That’s my regular job, and then I teach music lessons after school, and in breaks I do Yum Yum,” Velat said.

Teaching gives Velat more than just health insurance, though. “I feel I get more out of teaching than (the students) do, in some ways,” he said. “I get all this energy and I get these ideas and mannerisms and it all gets funneled into my art making.”

Lord of the Yum Yum (Paul Velat)

When: 7 p.m. today and 2 p.m. Saturday. (At tonight’s show, Velat will emcee and perform at the opening of a digital youth art exhibit. Punk marching band Mucca Pazza will headline.)

Where: Learning Curve at Central Library, 40 E. St. Clair St.

Admission: Free.

Information: (317) 275-4100, www.imcpl.org