Escape From Urfa: a Novella by Gail Springer

Escape From Urfa: a Novella by Gail Springer with music from Polly Ferber, Willa Roberts, members of the Sevda Choir, and special guest, Robby Rothschild

GAIL SPRINGER has performed as a singer, dancer, actress, and pianist since the age of five, when she appeared on Albuquerque’s Dick Bills TV Show. She received music training at Chicago’s Sherwood Music School and music degrees at University of New Mexico. She is an Estill Voice Master Teacher and taught at the College of Santa Fe where she created one of the first undergraduate BFA Music Theatre programs in the country. While teaching and directing plays and musicals at the Greer Garson Theatre for 36 years, Gail soloed with Desert Chorale’s Desert Voices, Kevin Zoernig, Canticum Novum, Pro Musica, Santa Fe Symphony, ShowTime Santa Fe, and Serenata of Santa Fe, with whom she recorded Ron Strauss’ Five Pieces of the Puzzle & Arabesco and Tangos De Santa Fe & Matapolvos. Her versatile voice can also be heard on the Bruce Odland Big Band LP, Crossover. Currently she performs with her musician husband, Peter Springer, in the contemporary acoustic rock trio, MONSOON, and has published two works of fiction, Two Chambered Heart: A Novella, and Escape from Urfa.

POLLY TAPIA FERBER is a percussionist, music educator, performer, and recording artist who specializes in hand percussion from the Middle East, Turkey, North Africa, the Balkans, and Spanish Andalusia. She maintains an active performing and recording schedule in the U.S. with the Los Angeles-based Middle Eastern rock band Rubi Ate the Fig, Dolunay NYC, the Santa Fe-based Nacha Mendez Band, and collaborations with the Santa Fe Desert Chorale.

WILLA ROBERTS is a vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, arranger/composer and teacher specializing in music from Eastern Europe, the Black Sea region, Turkey, the Middle East, and beyond. She is known for her evocative, rich, and versatile voice, as well as her precision, authenticity, musicality, and passionate engagement with community through music. Willa is featured with her vocal trio, Black Sea Hotel, on the Grammy Award-winning Yo-Yo Ma/The Silk Road Ensemble’s album, Sing Me Home. Other recent projects include the soundtrack for the film Don’t Worry Darling, the soundtrack for Meow Wolf Denver’s installation, a collaboration/performance with Kronos Quartet and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, Chornobyl Songs Project: Living Culture from a Lost World (Smithsonian Folkways), David Doty’s just intonation piece Parthenion, and solo performances in the Southwest premiere of Christopher Tin’s The Drop that Contained the Sea. Willa is musical director for Sevda Choir and SACRa Theater Company.

ROBBY ROTHSCHILD Singing songs of his own making, and accompanying them with instruments such as the West African kora, guitar, drums, and percussion, Robby Rothschild draws from the dual wells of tradition and personal expression. Known for his work with his brother, Char, in the duo Round Mountain, as well as his recent international tours as percussionist for Kip Winger and Ottmar Liebert, Robby’s solo work represents a furthering of his search into musical wilderness, and a deepening of rawness and vulnerability such as true wilderness and a path of loss brings to all of us. Music has called him in many directions, including to Mali, West Africa, whose music infused and possessed him, and to conservatory, where he achieved a master’s in composition. His pursuit of the sound emerging in his ears continues to guide him today.