“I pretty much just pick up the phone and say yes,” Blair Bailey replied, in explanation of how he has managed to be Orillia’s Mr. Music for so many years, and in so many ways.
“I was going to be a lawyer,” Bailey further explains. “I enjoyed music and had my associate in piano, but music wasn’t really a career, not the way law was…looking back, I don’t think I really had any idea what being a lawyer meant, it just seemed like a good job that was well paying.”
“I didn’t really plan to come back and stay in my hometown, but, well, the phone rang and…”
So, hang on. Let’s see if we can go back to the beginning and try and figure out how Mr. Music Orillia came about.
Bailey was born in Orillia, the youngest of three boys, to Lou and Marg Bailey. Lou worked as a service technician for Bell telephone, and had many interests, including playing sax in several local bands.
Marg was the school secretary at ODCVI and Harriett Todd Public School, in addition to being a dedicated volunteer for her church and other organizations in Orillia.
His parents’ interests and choices shaped Blair Bailey in many ways throughout his life.
Bailey’s older brothers chose to learn to play guitar as young boys, but Blair had to be different.
“I wanted to play the piano, even though we didn’t actually own a piano at the time,” Bailey said. “So, my teacher, Betty Hayes, who lived across the street, made me a cardboard cut out keyboard that I started on. She was a wonderful teacher.”
Bailey eventually graduated to a real piano, and enjoyed the instrument enough to get his associate teaching certificate in piano by the end of high school.
“I was also in musicals with Mariposa Arts Theatre, volunteering at the Orillia Kiwanis Music Festival. Oh, and Regent Park United Church called me, they were desperate, looking for a pianist or an organist to play for their services, so…I said yes. That started me on organ lessons, while I was still in high school.”
But being an organist or a piano player wasn’t a real job, in Bailey’s mind.
“I went to Knox College for my interview for law school, and the head said I couldn’t take English and history and those kinds of courses, I needed to take economics and all that to be a real lawyer. So I did, and I hated it. I only lasted one year.”
Back to Orillia he went.
“And I just kept picking up the phone and saying yes,” he explained.
More organ lessons, back to Regent Park to play, Mariposa Arts Theatre, the music festival.
“And then I picked up the phone and it was a teacher from Park Street Collegiate who was looking for an accompanist for their vocal chorus, so I said yes.”
That teacher was Mayumi Kumagai, whom Bailey married in 1982.
A year off from university became two, and then, “Mayumi said you could get into U of T in performance playing the pipe organ. So, I applied. I got in, they were probably so shocked there was someone applying in pipe organ, they just accepted me…first pipe organ in 100 years, maybe, I don’t know," he said with a laugh.
Bailey graduated from U of T in 1984, with a degree in music - not law.
“I graduated in the spring, and in August St. Paul’s United Church in Orillia posted that they were looking for an organist and music director. It seemed like fate, although I hadn’t really planned on being in Orillia forever.”
Bailey has been in Orillia full time since that fateful day. He was Artistic Director for the Orillia Kiwanis Music Festival for “probably 25 years or so,” until two years ago, and was instrumental in revamping and revitalizing that hallowed institution when he came on board.
He has been music director and/or pianist for many Mariposa Arts Theatre shows, including The King and I and Fiddler on the Roof, two biggies which Bailey remembers fondly.
He has been the accompanist for The Cellar Singers since 1985, thanks to another phone call, from then-conductor Albert Greer. He is the go-to fill-in conductor for the Orillia Vocal Ensemble when director Roy Menagh is absent, and has a thriving private music studio, teaching vocal, piano, harmony, and theory.
He has been the organist and choir director of St. Paul’s since 1984, outlasting many ministers and changes in the church structure, including its recent evolution into a performing arts space.
St. Paul’s has had a long history of producing musicals on its own; Bailey has been front and centre in these.
“When I first started, we had thriving children’s and youth choirs, and those groups would put on a musical each year. I remember doing the school production of Joseph, and You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. These were great shows. We had a lot of Mariposa Arts Theatre people in our congregation, and they just jumped in to help. Wayne Lennox and Dave Austen made us some incredible sets for our productions.”
Last year, Bailey was music director for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat again at St. Paul’s, a production which raised a whopping $36,000 for the church. “Just an amazing show,” Bailey mused. “Next year, I am hoping to do Fiddler on the Roof; I just love that show.”
What does the future hold for Orillia’s Mr. Music?
“Well, if the phone rings, I’m just gonna say yes,” Bailey hummed. “’I don’t know how to say no. When opportunity knocks, can’t start wondering what to say, just say yes!’ Not sure where those lyrics are from though…”
