Castle & Cross Consort

A Consort Affiliate of
the American Recorder Society

Organized in November of 1988 for a one time performance, the Castle & Cross Consort has just celebrated its 10th anniversary as a performing ensemble. We owe our group life to founding member Elizabeth Nichols, one of the original founding members of the American Orff Schulwerk Association.

As the story goes, Liz contacted the Washburn University music faculty to see if she could help play recorder in the instrumental group organized for their Madrigal Dinner fund raiser. She was politely told that no such group existed, but they would be happy to allow her to play if she found others to join her.

Well through one way or another, she found four other recorder players, one who had just recently moved to Topeka from an organization Leavenworth.

The first time we met was in a classroom at Washburn just before Topeka Symphony Orchestra rehearsal. It was at that time Elizabeth, Steve Clark, Gitta Gronewaller, Dick Mason and Jim Mosher met each other to sight-read music. We found that we could work together and, using combined resources for music and instruments, had enough for a decent program of dinner background music. The picture to the left shows the original five members of the Castle & Cross. They are (l to r) Steve, Gitta, Dick, Jim and Liz. Just click on the photo to see it full size.

We walked into the room where the dinner was to be held in borrowed Renaissance costumes and sat down to play by candlelight, which was something we had not anticipated. Our experience was such fun that we decided to continue for a while.........and we're still together. The picture at the right is from that fateful night, click on it to see the full size photo. The people are, from left to right, Jim Mosher, Liz Nichols, Steve Clark, Gitta Gronewaller and Ted Duda (the director of WU's madrigal group at the time). Dick Mason was not present for the photo.

And there's more to the story.... just click on the arrow to continue.

Check out our performance schedule web page for updates and current information.

Enchanted Willow Home Page Jim Mosher info page
EW Links & Awards Enchanted Willow Site Map