MayorBill de Blasio proclaimed June 11, 2019, Regina Spektor Day in New York City.[4] Spektor was inducted into the Bronx Walk of Fame on May 18, 2019, by Borough PresidentRubén Díaz Jr.[5]
Spektor was born on February 18, 1980,[6] inMoscow,Soviet Union, to a musicalRussian-Jewish family.[7][8][9][10] 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 inMount Vernon, New York, now retired.[11] Spektor has a brother, Boruch, who was featured in the track "* * *" (or "Whisper") from her 2003 albumSoviet Kitsch, and who inspired the song "Bear Spektor", which has been performed live but never officially released.[12][13] Growing up in Moscow, Regina started taking piano lessons when she was seven and learned how to play the piano by practicing on aPetrofupright that her grandfather gave her mother.[14][15] She grew up listening to classical music andRussian bards likeVladimir Vysotsky andBulat Okudzhava.[1] Her father, who obtained recordings in Eastern Europe and traded cassettes with friends in the Soviet Union, also exposed her torock and roll bands such asthe Beatles,Queen, andthe Moody Blues.[11]
The familyleft the Soviet Union forNew York City in 1989, when Spektor was nine and a half, during the period ofPerestroika, when Soviet citizens were permitted to emigrate. She had to leave her piano behind.[16] The seriousness of her piano studies led her parents to consider not leaving the Soviet Union, but they finally decided to emigrate due to the racial, ethnic, and politicaldiscrimination that Jewish people faced.[17][18][19]Traveling first to Austria and then Italy, the Spektor family was admitted to the United States as refugees with the assistance ofHIAS (the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society). They settled inthe Bronx, where Spektor graduated fromSAR Academy, aJewish day middle school in theRiverdale section of the Bronx. 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 theManhattan School of Music, until she was 17; Spektor's father had met Vargas through Vargas' husband, violinist Samuel Marder.[20] Spektor attended high school for two years at theFrisch School, ayeshiva inParamus, New Jersey, but transferred to a public school,Fair Lawn High School,[21] inFair Lawn, New Jersey, where she finished the last two years of her high school education.[22]
Spektor was originally interested in classical music only, but she later grew interested inhip hop,rock, andpunk as well.[11] Although she had always made up songs around the house, she first became interested in more formal songwriting during a visit toIsrael with theNesiya Institute in her teenage years when she attracted attention from the other children on the trip for the songs she made up while hiking.[19]
Following this trip, Spektor was exposed to the works ofJoni Mitchell,Ani DiFranco, and other singer-songwriters, which encouraged her belief that she could create her own songs.[19] She wrote her firsta cappella songs around the age of 16 and her first songs for voice and piano when she was 17.[11]
Spektor completed the four-year studio composition program of the Conservatory of Music atPurchase College within three years, graduating withhonors in 2001. Around this time, she also worked briefly at a butterfly farm inLuck, Wisconsin,[23][24] and studied inTottenham (in North London) for one term.[25]
Spektor gradually achieved recognition through performances in the anti-folk scene in downtown New York City, most prominently at the East Village'sSideWalk Cafe. She also performed at local colleges (such asSarah Lawrence College) with other musicians, including theTrachtenburg Family Slideshow Players. She sold self-published CDs at her performances during this period:11:11 (2001) andSongs (2002). Spektor's first nationwide tour was accompanyingthe Strokes as the opening act on their 2003–2004Room on Fire tour which included performances atThe Theater at Madison Square Garden. While on the tour, she and the band performed and recorded "Modern Girls & Old Fashion Men". After the tour,Kings of Leon, who were the second opening act on the tour, invited Spektor to open for them on their own European tour. In 2004, Spektor signed a contract withWarner Brothers' record labelSire Records to publish and distribute her third albumSoviet Kitsch, originally self-released in 2003. In 2005, she began making her first TV appearances including guest spots on variouslate-night talk shows.[2]
Spektor went on to release the albumBegin to Hope on June 13, 2006. The album debuted at number 70 on the USBillboard 200, and due to the popularity of the single "Fidelity", it went on to peak at number 20, and was certified Gold by theRIAA. Spektor received increased attention when her video for "Fidelity" was viewed over 200,000 times in two days on YouTube. Spektor's 2006 headlining tour in support of theBegin to Hope album included back-to-back hometown shows atTown Hall Theater in New York City on September 27 and 28, 2006.[27] This tour was Spektor's first to feature a full backing band.
Listeners ofSirius Radio's Left of Center channel voted her single "Fidelity" as the No. 1 song of 2006. Towards the end of 2006,VH1 showcased her as part of its "You Oughta Know: Artists on the Rise" featurettes, playing clips from the "Fidelity" music video and showing parts of an interview with Spektor during commercial breaks on the channel.[28] Spektor's video for "Fidelity" reached No. 3 on VH1's Top 20 Countdown.[citation needed] Spektor reached No. 33 onBlender magazine's top 100 of 2006 and was also listed as one of the "Hottest Women of Rock".[29] On January 21, 2007, she was given an extensive feature onCBS News Sunday Morning which showcased her musical beginnings and growing popularity.[30]
On November 14, 2007, at her concert atRyman Auditorium in Nashville, Spektor collapsed during the sound check and was taken to a local emergency room. According to the statement given to the audience, Spektor was fine, but doctors said that she could not perform that night. It was later reported that the cause of the collapse was aninner ear infection which caused intensevertigo. The show was initially rescheduled for December 6, 2007,[31] but the date was once again rescheduled, and the concert finally occurred on February 29, 2008.[32] After her initial collapse in Nashville, she was able to perform in concerts atMountain Stage, in West Virginia, on November 18, 2007 (the concert was aired in September 2008),[33][34] and at Duke University on November 19, 2007.[35]
Spektor's fifth album,Far, was released June 23, 2009. For the record she worked with four producers: David Kahne (who had previously worked with Spektor onBegin to Hope),Mike Elizondo,Jacknife Lee, andJeff Lynne. The record sold 50,000 copies in its first week, entering the USBillboard 200 at number three; the record remained on the chart for 19 weeks. The album peaked at number 30 and 16 in the UK and Canada, respectively. She then headlined at Serpentine Sessions, a series of concerts at London'sHyde Park on June 29, 2009. Other European performances in 2009 includedGlastonbury Festival,Hultsfred Festival,Oxegen 2009,T in the Park,Paradiso,Latitude Festival, andRock Werchter. Spektor invited Brooklyn-based rock bandJupiter One to open concerts on her 2009 North American tour. As a part of that tour, on October 14, 2009, Spektor headlined a concert atRadio City Music Hall in NYC. On September 16, 2009, it was announced that Spektor would write the music for the musicalBeauty, a modern adaptation of the fairy taleSleeping Beauty, which was initially set to open during the 2011–12 Broadway season.[37] Regina made herSaturday Night Live debut on October 10, 2009, performing "Eet" and "The Calculation" off ofFar.
In May 2010, Spektor performed forBarack andMichelle Obama along with hundreds of other guests at the White House reception in honor ofJewish American Heritage Month. She performed "Us" and "The Sword & The Pen."
Spektor's sixth album,What We Saw from the Cheap Seats, was released May 29, 2012. Like her previous album, it debuted at number three on theBillboard 200. Promotional appearances for the record included Spektor appearing on the June 7, 2012, episode ofThe Colbert Report, where she performed "Small Town Moon", as well as "Ballad of a Politician" as online bonus content.[38][39][40] Her world tour in support ofWhat We Saw from the Cheap Seats included a performance inMoscow; Spektor had not returned since leaving with her family in 1989.[41]
In 2012, Spektor was named an official "Steinway Artist"; she playsSteinway & Sons pianos almost exclusively.[42]
Spektor announced her seventh album,Remember Us to Life, on July 21, 2016, through her email newsletter. The album was released on September 30, 2016.[45] The first single, "Bleeding Heart", was released July 22, 2016. The follow-up single, "Small Bill$", was released August 11, 2016. Regina Spektor performedGeorge Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", released August 5, 2016, for the filmKubo and the Two Strings.[46]
In 2017, Spektor was featured as a guest singer on the title track to Gypsy-punk bandGogol Bordello's studio albumSeekers and Finders.[48] Spektor was also featured as a guest vocalist onOdesza's song "Just A Memory" from their albumA Moment Apart.
On November 8, 2018, Spektor released a new song entitled "Birdsong", written specially for an episode of theAmazon Prime seriesThe Romanoffs.[49]
On March 25, 2019, Spektor announced she would be bringing her music to Broadway as the Artist in Residency at theLunt-Fontanne Theatre for five performances June 20–26, 2019.[50]
On July 26, 2019, Spektor released an acoustic version of her own song "You've Got Time", coinciding with the release of the seventh and final season ofOrange Is the New Black. The song is featured in the final episode of the series.
In late 2019, Spektor released a new song, "Walking Away", for Amazon Prime Original SeriesModern Love.
On February 22, 2022, Spektor announced her eighth studio albumHome, Before and After with a June 24 release date, alongside the release of the album's lead single "Becoming All Alone". Recorded inupstate New York, the album was produced by Spektor andJohn Congleton.[51]
She performed anNPRTiny Desk Concert on August 5, 2022, including "Becoming All Alone" from her new album as well as tunes from past releases such as "Fidelity" and "Samson".[52]
Spektor's primary instrument is the piano, and she plays the guitar as a secondary instrument, primarily playing on a seafoamEpiphone Wildkatarchtophollow-body electric guitar for live performances.[53]
Spektor has said that she has created a great number of songs[54] but rarely writes any of them down. Spektor's songs are not usually autobiographical but are based on scenarios and characters drawn from her imagination.[19][55] Her songs show influences fromfolk,[56][57]punk,rock,Jewish,[55][58]Russian,[55]hip hop,[56][59]jazz,[56] and classical music.[55] Spektor has said 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:[30] "It doesn't feel natural for me to write some diary type song. I want to write a classic like "Yesterday" but weird songs about meatballs in refrigerators come into my head – I can't help it."[60]
Spektor performs using a broadvocal range, with a falsetto extension, but without any apparent break. She explores a variety of different and somewhat unorthodox vocal techniques, such as verses composed entirely of buzzing noises made with the lips andbeatbox-style flourishes in the middle of ballads, and also makes use of such unusual musical techniques as using a drum stick to tap rhythms on the body of a chair.[19][61] Part of her style also results from the exaggeration of certain aspects of vocalization, most notably theglottal stop, prominent in the single "Fidelity". She also uses a strongNew York accent on some words, which she has said is due to her love of New York and its culture.[11]
Spektor usually sings in English, though she sometimes includes a few words or verses ofLatin, Russian, French, or other languages. She plays with pronunciations, which she toldNPR was a remnant of her early years when she listened to pop in English without understanding the lyrics.
Her lyrics are equally eclectic, often taking the form of abstract narratives or first-person character studies, similar toshort stories orvignettes put to song.[11][61] Some of Spektor's lyrics include literary allusions,[19] such as:F. Scott Fitzgerald andErnest Hemingway in "Poor Little Rich Boy";The Little Prince in "Baobabs";Virginia Woolf andMargaret Atwood in "Paris";Ezra Pound andThe Merchant of Venice in "Pound of Flesh";Boris Pasternak in "Après Moi";Samson andDelilah in "Samson";Oedipus Rex in "Oedipus"; Edith Wharton'sEthan Frome in "2.99¢ Blues". Recurring themes and topics in Spektor's lyrics include love, death, religion (particularly biblical and Jewish references), city life (particularly New York references), and certain key phrases which recur in different songs, such as references togravediggers, theTree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the name "Mary Ann". Spektor's use of satire is evident in "Wasteside", which refers toThe Twelve Chairs, the classic satirical novel by the Soviet authorsIlf and Petrov, and describes the town in which people are born, get their hair cut, and then are sent to the cemetery.
Spektor's first album,11:11, was recorded and self-released while she was still in college. It differs from Spektor's later releases as she was heavily influenced byblues andjazz at the time of its recording. Her second album,Songs, was recorded on Christmas Day, 2001. Each song was recorded with just one take and is entirely acoustic. The session from which the album was derived was not originally intended as an album recording session.[62] Her third album,Soviet Kitsch, featured strings on several songs and was her first to feature a full rock band. Upon signing with a major label – which provided a bigger budget for production and studio time – Spektor began to emphasise production and more prominently use traditional pop and rock instruments.[16]
British singerKate Nash said, "I related to her because she's a woman who plays the piano and writes imaginative songs. I've played the piano since I was about seven but I'd never seen it as an instrument for pop music. Regina Spektor made the piano cool… I love the fact that her accent shines through. When I started making music, it inspired me to sing the way I talk, because that's what's real."[66]
In late-2005, "Us" was used in a commercial as part of theWhat Do You Want To Watch? series for the United Kingdom'sBritish Sky Broadcasting.[citation needed] In the summer of 2006, a clip from the same song was used for the teaser website forMicrosoft'sZune project at ComingZune.com,[citation needed] as well as for a promotional campaign forMtvU,[citation needed] and by Dutch telecom companyKPN in a commercial.[citation needed]
Spektor is fluent in Russian and reads Hebrew.[74] She has described herself as "veryRussian Jewish".[75] She has paid tribute to her Russian heritage, quoting the poem "February" by the Russian poetBoris Pasternak in her song "Après Moi", and stated that she is "very connected to the language and the culture."[74] Spektor visited Moscow in July 2012, when she toured through Russia in support of her sixth albumWhat We Saw from the Cheap Seats.[41]
In a 2016 interview on NPR, Spektor discussed how her experiences and struggles as an immigrant youth in New York contributed to the albumRemember Us to Life, whose title is a phrase from theYom Kippur liturgy (זכרינו לחיים) that she encountered while pregnant.[76][77] She frequently pays tribute to her Jewish identity and talked about theantisemitism she experienced and theintergenerational traumas associated with this identity.[17][78][79]
She admires former President of the United StatesBarack Obama,[25] but also stated that his initial opposition to same-sex marriage was "as embarrassing aswhite-only drinking fountains".[84] Her song "Fidelity" was used in a campaign againstProposition 8, which sought to ban same-sex marriage in California.[85] She also deplored the election ofDonald Trump as President of the United States in 2016.[78]
In February 2022, Spektor condemned theRussian invasion of Ukraine.[86] In August 2023, she said that "the horrible war in Ukraine breaks all our hearts", and that when she was leaving the Soviet Union duringGorbachev'sPerestroika, "it really felt like things were going to turn around and there would be this incredible awakening and there was going to be a shift of freedom and a chance. But the idea that it's actually clamped down and is much less free and much scarier than when I left is very hard for me to understand."[87]
Spektor is a supporter of Israel[88] and has performed in Israel on several occasions.[89][90] In 2008, she performed at a ceremony at theNational Mall celebrating the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the state of Israel.[79] She has also expressed support for the country amidst various escalations of theArab–Israeli conflict, especially during theGaza war.[79][91][92] She has said that Israel is protecting Europe and the United States "from the gates of hell".[93]
In 2016, she spoke against calls for artists to stop holding concerts in Israel as part of theBoycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, stating that "[b]y not playing in Israel, you're punishing the wrong people."[78]
Spektor has voiced her support for Israel during theGaza war, whilst facing scrutiny for her activism on social media.[93][94][95] She expressed sadness and anger on Instagram at the "largest massacre of Jews since theHolocaust" in the days following theOctober 7 attacks.[96] On October 30, she made another Instagram post questioning the calls for a ceasefire instead of demanding that Hamas surrender and return the hostages.[95] She affirmed her position against a ceasefire in an interview withYnet on November 10, emphasising her desire "to liberate Gaza from Hamas".[93]
In November 2023, Spektor responded negatively to an Instagram post made byBjörk that criticizedIsrael's displacement of Palestinians.[88][92][93][94][97] Spektor claimed that this infographic was false propaganda and was ignorant of the nuances of the situation, whilst also expressing disappointment as Björk had been one of her musical idols.[88][95] At this time, Spektor also expressed dismay at what she said was the political left's characterisation of Israel as awhite colonialist power committinggenocide in Gaza[95] and stated that their positions landed them "shoulder to shoulder with Hamas".[93]
In July 2025, Spektor was heckled mid-way through her concert in Portland with chants of "Free Palestine". She accused the hecklers of "just yelling at a Jew", suggesting that this was an example ofantisemitism and that she was being "othered".[88][100][94][97][101] After stating that this was "real life" and not an "internet comment section", an audience member, referencing thefamine in Gaza, replied "...there is agenocide happening. I'm watching dying children. That hurts."[96][101] Spektor responded that she did not want to discuss the subject and encouraged those unhappy with her position to leave, which some did.[101]
She married singer-songwriterJack Dishel in 2011. Formerly a guitarist with the bandthe Moldy Peaches, Dishel performs as Only Son, and duets with Spektor in the song "Call Them Brothers".[25] They have two children.[102]
On January 22, 2009, Spektor performed at the third annual Roe on the Rocks gig at theBowery Ballroom to raise money forPlanned Parenthood New York City.[104] Continuing with her support for Tibet, Regina Spektor played forTibet House's annual concert atCarnegie Hall on February 26, 2010.[105] Less than one month later, on March 23, 2010, Spektor gave a concert atthe Fillmore at Irving Plaza in New York City to raise funds for the work ofMédecins Sans Frontières in Haiti.[106] On April 27, she released a cover of Radiohead's song "No Surprises", for which all proceeds went to Médecins Sans Frontières to help earthquake victims inHaiti andChile.[107]
In February 2012, Spektor featured in a benefit concert atRose Hall forHIAS, an organization that helped a young Spektor and her family emigrate from the Soviet Union.[108] Spektor also has taken part in several memorial and benefit concerts for the family of Dan Cho, her former cellist who died while on tour with her in 2010.[109][110]
^Bloom, Nate. "Noshes: Worth Checking Out",The Jewish Standard, June 29, 2007. "Spektor, 27, is far better known... She went to middle school yeshiva in New York and, for her first two years in high school, she went to the Frisch School in Paramus. She graduated from Fair Lawn High School."
^Colbert, Stephen (July 6, 2012)."The Colbert Report July 6, 2012".The Colbert Report. Comedy Central. Archived from the original on May 27, 2016. RetrievedJune 2, 2018.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)(transcript available at )