Most of us have enough challenges with a single career. Michael Bloss has navigated two challenging and very different jobs. At the same time.
An affable, easygoing sort, Bloss, 65, is currently the music director at St. Mark’s Church in Old Town. And, up until this past October, a full-time pilot for Canada’s leading air service company, Cargojet, taking time-sensitive cargos to every nook and cranny of Canada.
Both careers have been personal passions since about the age of 10.
“My father used to take me to the old Malton airport (Toronto Pearson International) to watch the planes flying in and out,” says Bloss. “Then, for a few summers, he took the family home to southern Germany, where a great uncle took me on ‘organ crawls’: a walkabout to hear organs in magnificent venues throughout Europe.”
“I was hooked, both on flying and the glorious music of the organ — the way it filled the wonderful acoustics in those big places in Europe.”
Bloss spent his early years in Toronto, a child of parents who had emigrated to Canada in 1958. Today he and his wife Mona Bailey live in Grimsby, just about smackdab in the middle of his two careers. He earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees in organ performance at Western and Toronto.
He has been a professional pilot for 25 years. After training at the old Buttonville airport, he flew with Air Georgian, Air Canada Express and Rouge, before COVID almost closed the passenger airlines. He moved to Cargojet who “couldn’t find enough pilots.”
In October, after turning 65, he retired from active flying, although although there is a retirement career in flight training, if he wants it.
All the while, for more than 40 years, he has been pleasing audiences, both churchly and not, on the organ and, if he’s pressed, the piano. Thankfully, St. Mark’s Anglican Church has three organs and a grand piano.
So, for 15 days a month, he flew — considered full-time — and the rest he managed the St. Mark’s music program, plays on Sundays with a small choir and performs, as often as he’s asked, with professional choirs, mostly under the direction of Noel Edison, founder and music director of the Edison Singers.
Bloss also records for the Naxos record label. Usually with one of Edison’s various choral organizations. In October, he recorded his first solo album of symphonic works for the organ composed by Cesar Franck.
“It’s exciting. I’ve always wanted to record these pieces. I just needed to find the combination of the right organ and the right acoustics.”
Bloss is quick to mention his next gig, performing with the Edison Singers on Palm Sunday, March 29, a choral concert featuring major works of two composers, Faure and Duruflé.
“It will be a very eclectic program,” says Bloss. “Two requiems that have become the signposts of two very important composers, highlighting their unique musical expressions and historical contexts.”
Bloss emphasizes the concert’s significance in showcasing how different composers interpret the same text.
He is still considering his post-retirement options. But he is certain of one thing: he will continue to work with the Edison Singers.
“Noel and I have worked together for over 40 years, for so long that we know what each other wants and how everything goes together musically. He hardly has to say anything about what he wants. It’s all clear.”
In May, the Edison Singers will again be recording these requiems for Naxos with distribution internationally late this year or early 2027.
Tickets and information for the Sunday, March 29 concert can be found at edisonsingers.com or by calling 226-384-9300.
