Regina Spektor,
photo by Danny North
(who is a friggin’ awesome photographer)

The other day I was down by the Hudson River, and I see two nuns in full habit rollerblading down the street holding hands. And I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, I get it. The world is surreal and beautiful. And everything is fine.’ — Regina Spektor

Regina Ilyinichna Spektor (b. 2/18/80) is a Russian-born American singer, songwriter, and pianist. After self-releasing her first three records and gaining popularity in NYC’s independent music scenes, particularly the anti-folk scene centered on New York City’s East Village, Spektor signed with Sire Records in 2004 resulting in greater mainstream recognition. After giving her third album a major label re-release, Sire released Spektor’s fourth album, Begin to Hope, which achieved a Gold certification by the RIAA. Her following two albums, Far and What We Saw from the Cheap Seats, each debuted at number 3 on the Billboard 200.

Early Life:

Spektor was born in Moscow, Soviet Union, to a musical Russian-Jewish family. Her father, Ilya Spektor, was a photographer and amateur violinist. Her mother, Bella Spektor, was a music professor in a Soviet college of music and taught at public elementary schools in Mount Vernon, New York, now retired. Regina has a brother, Boruch.

The family left the Soviet Union for the Bronx in 1989, when Spektor was nine and a half, during the period of Perestroika, when Soviet citizens were permitted to emigrate. They left due to the racial, ethnic, and political discrimination that Jewish people faced. Traveling first to Austria and then Italy, the Spektor family was admitted to the United States as refugees with the assistance of HIAS (the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.) They settled in the Bronx, where Spektor graduated from SAR Academy, a Jewish day middle school, attended high school for two years at the Frisch School, a yeshiva in Paramus, NJ, but transferred to PS Fair Lawn High School, where she finished the last two years of high school.

Musical Beginnings:

Growing up in Moscow, Regina started taking piano lessons when she was seven and learned how to play the piano by practicing on a Petrof upright that her grandfather gave her mother. She grew up listening to classical music and Russian bards like Vladimir Vysotsky and Bulat Okudzhava. Her father, who obtained recordings in Eastern Europe and traded cassettes with friends in the Soviet Union, also exposed her to rock and roll bands such as the Beatles, Queen, and the Moody Blues. She had to leave her piano behind. The seriousness of her piano studies led her parents to consider not leaving the Soviet Union. Since the family had been unable to bring their piano from Moscow, Spektor practiced on tabletops and other hard surfaces until she found a piano to play in the basement of her synagogue. In New York City, Spektor studied classical piano with Sonia Vargas, a professor at the Manhattan School of Music, until she was 17; Spektor’s father had met Vargas through Vargas’ husband, violinist Samuel Marder.

Spektor was originally interested in classical music only, but she later grew interested in hip hop, rock, and punk as well. Although she had always made up songs around the house, she first became interested in more formal songwriting during a visit to Israel with the Nesiya Institute in her teenage years when she attracted attention from the other children on the trip for the songs she made up while hiking.

Following this trip, Spektor was exposed to the works of Joni Mitchell, Ani DiFranco, and other singer-songwriters, which encouraged her belief that she could create her own songs. She wrote her first a cappella songs around the age of 16 and her first songs for voice and piano when she was 17.

Spektor completed the four-year studio composition program of the Conservatory of Music at Purchase College within three years, graduating with honors in 2001. Around this time, she also worked briefly at a butterfly farm in Luck, Wisconsin, and studied in Tottenham (in North London) for one term.

Discography:

Studio albums	8
Live albums	2
Compilation albums	1
EPs	4
Singles	26
Other appearances	23

Filmography:
Long list of media where her works appear is found here at wiki

Some things to share:

Spektor is fluent in Russian and reads Hebrew.

She married singer-songwriter Jack Dishel in 2011. Formerly a guitarist with the band the Moldy Peaches, Dishel performs as Only Son, and duets with Spektor in the song “Call Them Brothers.” They have two children.

She’s got a long list of philanthropy, available at wikipedia.

Official website: here

Sources: wikipedia, YouTube