See 81 more photos

Regina Spektor

508,502 listeners (22,508,798 plays)

Listening now: srahhhhhh, itsonlyrain, scottiedawgman

Add to my Library Share

female vocalists, indie, singer-songwriter, piano, alternative… see all

2,769 shouts

Moscow, Soviet Union (2001 – present)

Regina Spektor was born on February 18th, 1980, in Moscow, Soviet Union, to a musical family. Her father, a photographer, was also an amateur violinist. Her mother was a music professor in a Russian conservatory and now teaches at a public elementary school in Mount Vernon, New York.

Spektor studied classical piano from the age of six, practicing on a Petrof piano given to her mother by her grandfather. She was also exposed to the music of rock and roll bands such as The Beatles, Queen, and The Moody Blues by her father, who obtained such recordings in Eastern Europe and traded cassettes with friends in the Soviet Union. The family left the Soviet Union in 1989, when Regina was nine, during the period of Perestroika when Jewish citizens were permitted to emigrate. The seriousness of her piano studies led her parents to consider not leaving Russia, but they finally decided to emigrate, for religious and political reasons.

Traveling first to Austria and then Italy, the family settled in the Bronx, New York, where Spektor graduated from a middle school yeshiva. She then attended the Frisch Yeshiva High School in Paramus, New Jersey on a scholarship for two years, but, feeling out of place, eventually transferred to a secular public school, Fair Lawn High School, in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, where she finished the last two years of her high school career.

Spektor has stated that she was originally interested only in classical music, but that she later became interested in pop, rock, and punk as well.


Beginnings as a songwriter
Read More… Edit

Similar Artists

Fiona Apple, Feist, Rachael Yamagata, Kate Nash, Kimya Dawson, Tori Amos, St. Vincent… see all

See more

Videos

See more

Top Tracks

1 Play
7,765
2 Play
6,555
3 Play
5,716
4 Play
4,623
5 Play
4,075
6 Play
3,255
7 Play
Us
3,025
8 Play
2,881
9 Play
2,705
10 Play
2,505
11 Play
2,356
12 Play
2,328
13 Play
2,049
14 Play
1,973
15  
1,826
See more

Top Albums

See more

Shoutbox

Leave a comment. Log in to Last.fm or sign up (it’s free).

Listeners

See more

Events

Add event | See more

Recent Activity

Related Journals

See more

Groups (231)

See more

More Information

Links
Labels

What’s New

It’s here. Welcome to the new Last.fm! Read all about it on our blog.

“You've Got Questions. We've Got Last.fm.”
© 2002–2008 Last.fm Ltd. Terms of Use