Michael Bloss inhabits the twin worlds of aviation (Flight Instructor) and music. As Director of Music Ministry at Dublin Street United Church in Guelph, he continues a distinguished tradition of pastoral music ministry which over 30 years has included tenures at the Cathedral Church of St. James’ in Toronto, First (Park) Congregational Church, Grand Rapids, MI and Timothy Eaton Memorial Church, Toronto. He is an international competition winner (First Prize in the 1986 International Organ Competition at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Preisträger at the 1992 IX. International J.S. Bach Organ Competition held in Leipzig, Germany), and has appeared throughout the world and on radio and television. A veteran of both parish choral ministries small and large and advanced choral studies at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, he recently led the Toronto group “Sursum Corda” to distinction in the CBC Radio 2 Competition for Amateur Choirs. Increasingly, he is in demand as an adjudicator and clinician in organ, piano and choral music at music festivals and workshops across the country. 

Lori-Anne Dolloff,
MusBac, BEd, MusM (Toronto), LTCL (Organ Performance,Trinity College, London), PhD (OISE/UT): Choral Instructor, Conductor
A favourite of SICM students of the recent past, Lori- Anne is Coordinator of the Music Education division of the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music, and Organist/Director of Music for Church of Our Saviour in the Don Mills area of Toronto. She teaches undergraduate courses in elementary methods, and choral conducting. At the graduate level she teaches courses in "reflective practice", narrative research methodology, and music in higher education. Dr. Dolloff has published on teacher identity in the British journal "Research in Music Education" and the Canadian Journal of Research in Music Education. Her monograph, Das Schulwerk provides an excellent philosophical discussion of the role of the Orff approach in the artistic development of children. She is also a contributing author to the text "We Will Sing!" An Associate of the International Association for Choral Music Education, Prof. Dolloff has taught course on conducting, score study and reflective practice across the United States and in Canada, and in Great Britain and Sweden. An emerging composer/arranger, she has many choral pieces published with Boosey & Hawkes, and is frequently sought out as a guest conductor for choral festivals and workshops.

The Rev. Dennis A. Dolloff,
B.A., M. Div. (Chaplain to SICM 2008), is the first person ever ordained in a wheelchair (1984) in the Anglican Communion worldwide. He has many and varied interests, including music, magic, poetry and literature, sports and computers. Dennis has lived in a wheelchair for 20 years, after his car was struck by another, driven by a drunk driver. Dennis became rector of the anglican Church of Our Saviour, Don Mills in September of 1999. He is also an accomplished musician, having played in three bands (Heavensent (1972-76) Restoration (76-79) The Law & the Prophets (1995-Present), and his three solo albums Disguised as a Saint, Moanin' & Groanin' & Snappin' & Snarlin' (and other noises too complex to categorize) and Dismal Psalms & Dangerous Praise (as well as mp3 dowloads of some of his over one hundred songs, are available online at http://oursaviourdonmills.com. He and Lori-Anne have been married for over twenty years.

Christopher Dawes, B.Mus (HONS, Queen’s, 1988), FRCCO, M.A. (Music Criticism (McMaster, 2006), SICM Director ‘04-present) numbered among Canada’s leading church musicians, concert organists and choral accompanists, is also an active freelance theatre musician, writer, and consultant. He has given concerts in all of Canada’s major cities, and has toured, and been recorded and broadcast in the USA and Europe. Mr. Dawes currently divides his time between his family, freelance performing and workshop-leading; performing, directing and composing in adjunct capacity to music and drama programs of the University of Toronto, and being co-principal accompanist to the Toronto Children’s Chorus. He serves as Director of three institutions well-known in Canada’s organ world: the production company Organ Alternatives, the Organ Concerts and Academy at Stratford Summer Music, and the Summer Institute of Church Music. Having served Toronto’s St. James’ Cathedral first as organist and later as one of its youngest-ever Directors of Music for twelve years ending in 2003, his current church musical ministries are as Director of SICM, as consultant and Lead Musician at Toronto’s Church of St. George the Martyr, and as one of several volunteer organists at Georgetown Christian Reformed Church. He lives in Georgetown with his wife Marcia, their sons Nate and Simon, and by SICM 2008, one more new little Dawes.

Heather Whaley, a Whitby-based Storyteller and Singer/Songwriter, performs both traditional and her own stories bringing them to life through singing, the use of homemade instruments and props, and playing the guitar. Her experience working in a mid-size library for 13 years in Children's and Youth services provided many opportunities to develop programming skills which eventually led her out in the community to a full time career as a presenter & performer. Her presentations are designed to entertain, address themes and issues that appeal to various ages, meet grade level curriculum and transcend all ages (including adults) and cultures, and preserve the dignity and heritage they embody. Heather was the initiator and Project Chair for a large educational multicultural storytelling program to help celebrate the Town of Whitby's sesquicentennial (150th) year in 2005. During Sept & Oct. the program reached approximately 2,000 grade 4-6 students and over 80 community listeners at a public concert!  At SICM 2008 she and harpist Kim Michele will present “The Nightingale” by Hans Christian Andersen, a beautiful story with profound implications for church musicians on the gifts of life, music, the advent of technology and the world’s response to all three.

Patricia Wright MFA (Carnege-Mellon), DMA (Yale), FRCCO (HON) has been Director of Music and Organist of Metropolitan United Church in Toronto since September of 1986 where she directs a graded choir program from pre-school through adults, a concert series, and an active ministry of music and arts in worship. A graduate of Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, she holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Yale University as a student in the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. Her teachers have included Donald Wilkins, Charles Krigbaum, Nadia Boulanger, Jean Langlais, and Michael Schneider. Active as a recitalist, adjudicator, and clinician, Dr. Wright has been heard in recital in Canada, the United States, and Europe and has been broadcast on the CBC. She has held positions in New Haven and Ottawa, has taught at the University of Ottawa, and has served as a competition judge including the North American finals of the 1998 Calgary International Organ Competition. She is a founding member of the United Church of Canada Association of Musicians and is a past national president of the Royal Canadian College of Organists, having received an honorary Fellowship in 1997. She serves as an Instructor of Organ at the University of Toronto Faculty of Music. At SICM 2008, Dr. Wright will present, with the help of colleagues Christopher Dawes and Michael Bloss, “The Organ in New Worship”.

Hilariter Singers and Players is an inter-denominational group of singers and players, based in Toronto, committed to diversity in worship and to exploring the worship resources available from around the world. Through this exploration it seeks also to discover and hone the wide-ranging gifts of the members of the group. Through worship, performances and recordings Hilariter hopes to help congregations who are interested in exploring this connection to the worldwide church and wish people to understand that to hear and receive these musical gifts from the global church is another form of mission. Hilariter is directed and managed by Dr. Andrew Donaldson and Wendy Donaldson, who founded the group. Andrew Donaldson, an internationally-known leader of global song, has served as faculty at SICM in three past sessions. Members of Hilariter are looking forward to a visit to the Moravian Theological Seminary in Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA in October. There they will be leading workshops in integrating global music into creative and faithful worship.

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