- Born
- Birth nameRegina Ilinichna Spektor
- Height5′ 3½″ (1.62 m)
- Regina Spektor was born in Moscow, USSR to a musical Jewish family. Her father, Ilya Spektor, is a photographer and violinist. Her mother, Bella Spektor, was a music professor in a Russian college of music and now teaches at a public elementary school in New York. Spektor learned how to play piano by practicing on a Petrof upright that was given to her mother by her grandfather. The family left the Soviet Union in 1989 due to the ethnic and political discrimination which Jews faced; Regina was nine and had to leave her piano behind.The family settled in the Bronx, New York, where Spektor graduated in Fair Lawn public high school. She gradually achieved recognition through performances in the anti-folk scene in downtown New York City, most importantly at the East Village's Sidewalk Cafe. She sold self-produced CDs at her performances during this period: 11:11 (2001) and Songs (2002). Her other album Soviet Kitsch (2004) was also self produced but Sire and Shoplifter Records help produce the album, while Begin to Hope (2006) was completely produced by Sire records. Regina Spektor is best known for her real lyrics that are supported with her completely recognizable and unique voice.- IMDb Mini Biography By: goldenticket2
- SpouseJack Dishel(December 18, 2011 - present) (1 child)
- Red hair and dark red lipstick
- Her distinctive voice
- Seafoam Epiphone Wildkat archtop hollow-body electric guitar
- Steinway Piano
- Quirky but intimate lyrics
- Her family had to leave the Soviet Union because of the discrimination Jewish people faced.
- Her first two English words were "garbage" and "sneakers.".
- Moved to the Bronx from Moscow and had to leave the family piano behind.
- She performed the song The Call in The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008), as part of the film's finale sequence. Spektor wrote this song especially for the film.
- Gave birth to her 1st child at age 34, a son in March 2014. Child's father is her husband, Jack Dishel.
- Usually, I write it all together. The words and the piano part just come to find where they sit together, and the sounds and everything just kind of roll around over and over, until it all settles as a song. Sometimes I'll hum while walking and write a song, but usually I can never figure out a piano part to it later. It just stays an a Capella song.
- I used to be such a militant city-ist, but more and more I've seen forests and nature and oceans, and I don't know any more if this is the awesomest way to live.
- You make something, and you really have fun with it, and you try to put emotion in it, and at the end of the day, you have no idea how the tide is going to fall. You don't know if everyone's going to like it, if everyone's going to hate it, if it's going to be like you're a media darling, or all of a sudden you're a sellout. You have no idea.
- It feels very good to sing in Russian. It feels so good inside my body.
- This is the way I wanna die. Torn apart by angry fans who want me to play a different song.
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