Tom Leighton and Mark Haines will be performing at the Orangeville Opera House on November 4. Contributed photo Tom Leighton and Mark Haines are looking forward to the return engagement they have coming up next week at the invitation of the Orangeville Concert Association (OCA).

“We’ve played at that venue before – the Opera House, isn’t it?” said Mr. Leighton. “It’s a sweet spot! We’ve played other places in Orangeville too,” he added. “Orangeville’s a great place.”

In a later conversation, Mr. Haines was in full agreement with his musical partner. “We always have a great time in Orangeville,” he said. “It’s the honest goods.”

Although they live in different parts of the country – Mr. Leighton in Toronto, while Mr. Haines lives in P.E.I. – they nevertheless play several gigs a year together, mainly in Ontario.

When they received the OCA’s invitation to play at the Opera House, they organized a number of other concerts to do in the region.

“It’s the only way it makes financial sense for Mark to come from P.E.I.,” Mr. Leighton explained.

Their original meeting came when Mr. Haines, who was living in Toronto at the time, needed a pianist for his band and Mr. Leighton offered himself for the job. They “just clicked,” Mr. Leighton said. “We both have really eclectic taste in music.”

As a duo, they make a lot of music. “I know thousands of songs,” he said, “all the bass and the chords, but Mark knows them all – and the words! Sometimes, someone makes a request for a song that we wouldn’t normally think of doing. Naturally, Mark knows the words and I’ll know the chords. Later, we think about working on that and then we include it in our repertoire.”

That’s a lot of music for only two musicians. Mr. Haines plays the fiddle and sings. “He’s got a very different voice,” Mr. Leighton commented. “Nobody sounds like him.”

Of his own contribution to the event, he said, “I play the accordion – I play the bass and chords with my left hand and the melody with my right. I can play the Irish drum at the same time as well.”

It stands to reason that with such an unusual arrangement, the humour will be great and the repartee between the two of them will make for endless fun.

“We’ve played together so much over so many years that we’re so tight,” Mr Leighton said. “He’s coming early in the week so we can allow some music making time to get the energy together again. Our sound is so unique.”

Of course, the gigs these two gentlemen do over the length of a year would not be enough work and we talked about this too.

Mr. Leighton remarked about the need for a musician to be flexible. “For all musicians, you do whatever you can to stay in music.” For his part, he plays with other musicians, recording on some of their CDs, as well as with Mr. Haines.

He also teaches and arranges music. This last seems to be a point of pride, for his arrangements are used by teachers in arts schools as well as by other musicians.

Mr. Haines also has a lot of private students – it’s not easy to be a musician fulltime and earn a living from it.

“To work all the time,” said Mr. Leighton, “you have to be really versatile.”

Mark Haines and Tom Leighton are at the Opera House, Friday of next week, November 4. For tickets go to the Opera House Box Office, 519-942-3423, or you can email at tickets @orangevilleconcerts.ca

And for more information on the OCA season, the website is www.orangevilleconcerts.ca