Regina Spektor


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Regina Spektor (Русский: Регина Спектор) (born February 18, 1980) is a Russian-born American singer-songwriter and pianist. Her music is associated with the anti-folk scene centered on New York City's East Village.

Regina Spektor

Early life

Spektor was born in Moscow, Soviet Union (now Russia) to a musical family. Her father, a photographer, was also an amateur violinist and her mother was a music professor in a Russian conservatory (she now teaches at a public elementary school in Mount Vernon, New York). The family left the Soviet Union in 1989 (when Regina was nine), during the period of Perestroika when Jewish citizens were permitted to emigrate.[1] Traveling first to Austria and then Italy, they finally settled in the Bronx, New York.

In Russia, Spektor had studied classical piano from the age of six, and was also exposed to the music of rock and roll bands such as the 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.

Beginnings as a songwriter

In New York, Spektor gained a firm grounding in classical music from her piano teacher, Sonia Vargas, a professor at the Manhattan School of Music. Although she had always made up songs around the house, Spektor first became interested in songwriting during a visit to Israel during her teenage years. Attracting attention from the other children on the trip for the songs she made up while hiking, she realized she had an aptitude for songwriting. Following this trip, she was first exposed to the work of Joni Mitchell, Ani DiFranco, and other singer-songwriters, which gave her the idea that she could create her own songs.

Spektor studied music at Purchase College in Purchase, New York, graduating in 2001. She gradually achieved notice through performances in the anti-folk scene in downtown New York City, most importantly at the East Village's Sidewalk Cafe. During this period, she sold her self-produced CDs 11:11 and Songs at such performances.

Style

Spektor's idiosyncratic songs generally take the form of character studies, and are thus much like short stories in song. She states that she has created hundreds of songs, but that she rarely writes any of them down. Unlike the work of many singer-songwriters, they are not usually autobiographical, but based on scenarios drawn from her imagination. They range from playful to introspective in character, showing influences from classical, folk, Russian music, and hip hop music. Her earliest work also shows the influence of jazz and blues, drawing comparisons to her contemporary Fiona Apple (also a singer-pianist). She has stated that she works hard to ensure that each of her songs has its own musical style, rather than trying to develop a distinctive style for her music as a whole.

Spektor also explores the various timbres of her voice, including a breathy, angelic high register and a Billie Holiday-like lower register that she often allows to break into a trumpet-like tone quality. She often uses a jazzy vibrato and sliding tones in her voice's middle register. She also uses a variety of rather unorthodox techniques, such as verses composed entirely of buzzing noises made with the lips, beatbox-style flourishes in the middle of ballads, or the use of a drum stick to tap rhythms on the body of the piano, or a chair.

Her lyrics (which she usually sings in English, though sometimes including a few words of French or Russian, and the occasional verse of Latin) are equally eclectic, frequently drawing on unusual intellectual and literary references, (such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway in "Poor Little Rich Boy," The Little Prince in "Baobabs," Virginia Woolf and Margaret Atwood in "Paris," Ezra Pound in "Pound of Flesh," Boris Pasternak in "Après Moi," Oedipus the King in "Oedipus," the story of Icarus in "Lacrimosa," and Eleanor Roosevelt in "Uh-Merica,") further setting her music apart from mainstream folk music. Many of her songs are narrative, use a mixture of styles and techniques, and often start with a seemingly simple piano riff. She uses a strong New York accent on some words, which she states is due to her love of New York and its culture.

She also uses an unusual production style. Many of her tracks have very dry vocal production, with very little reverb or delay added artificially. This is extremely unusual in contemporary music to do so little to the voice when producing it. Indeed, it has a raw feel generally, giving the impression that very little was done to the track generally in the production phase.

Performances

Since roughly 2005, Spektor has performed on a bright red Baldwin baby grand piano. She opened for The Strokes in 2003, on her first North American tour. Subsequently, she appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien (twice), The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (twice), Jimmy Kimmel Live, and Last Call with Carson Daly (twice). She has toured the United States and Europe. Although she generally only performs original material, she performed her first covers in 2005, of songs by Leonard Cohen and Madonna for the 2nd Annual Jewish Music & Heritage Festival in New York City.

While with The Strokes on their 2003/2004 Room on Fire tour, Spektor performed their song "Modern Girls & Old Fashion Men" alongside the band.

In 2006, Spektor embarked on a successful headlining tour of the United States and Europe, selling out numerous clubs and theaters.

Beginning in 2005, Spektor's music has been used in various television programs and commercials. In late 2005 "Us" (from Soviet Kitsch) was used in a commercial as part of the What Do You Want To Watch? series for the United Kingdom's Sky Television. The advert features an impressive clip from a documentary on skateboarder Danny Way. In the summer of 2006, a clip from "Us" was used for the teaser website for Microsoft's Zune project at ComingZune.com, as well as for a promotional campaign for MtvU. "Somedays" was used in a 2005 episode of CSI: NY and "Samson" was used in a 2006 episode of the same series. "On the Radio" was used in an episode of ABC's popular Grey's Anatomy. "Fidelity" was also used in a recent episode of "Grey's Anatomy" titled "Sometimes a Fantasy" and in an episode of Veronica Mars titled "Wichita Linebacker". "Better" is currently being used in a commercial for XM Satellite Radio. Spektor also sang the title song "Little Boxes" of Showtime's television series Weeds in the 2006 episode "Mile Deep and a Foot Wide" and her "Ghost of Corporate Future" was used both at the beginning and end of the episode.

Trivia

Spektor worked at a butterfly farm in Luck, Wisconsin after graduating from college.

Discography

Regina Spektor's early albums are quite difficult to find, as most of them have been released exclusively in the United States, although her compilation, Mary Ann Meets the Gravediggers and Other Short Stories, has been released worldwide.

Albums

Singles and EPs

Compilations

Articles

Listening

Interviews

Video

See also