Background

Here is a little background on our chosen song singer – Regina Spektor.

• Regina Ilyinichna Spektor is a Russian-born American singer-songwriter and pianist born in 1980, February 18.
• Her music is associated with the anti-folk scene centered in New York City's East Village.
• Spektor was born in Moscow to a musical Russian Jewish family.
• Her father, Ilya Spektor, is a photographer and amateur violinist.
• Her mother, Bella Spektor, was a music professor in a Russian college of music and now teaches at a public elementary school in Mount Vernon, New York.
• She has a brother Barry (who was referred to as Bear), who was featured in track 7, "Whisper", of her 2004 album, Soviet Kitsch.
• She learned how to play piano by practicing on a Petrof upright that was given to her mother by her grandfather.
• She was exposed to the music of rock and roll bands such as The Beatles, Queen, and The Moody Blues by her father
• In New York, Spektor studied classical piano with Sonia Vargas.
• Spektor was originally interested only in classical music, but later became interested in hip hop, rock and punk as well.
• She wrote her first a cappella songs around age sixteen and her first songs for voice and piano when she was nearly 18.
• 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 [9], and studied in Tottenham, England for one semester.
• 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, but also at the Living Room, Tonic, Fez, the Knitting Factory, and CB's Gallery.
• She performed at local colleges with other musicians, including the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players.
• She sold self-published CDs at her performances during this period: and Songs.
• In 2004, she signed a contract with Warner Brothers' record label Sire Records to publish and distribute her third album Soviet Kitsch, originally self-released in 2003.

Her Style

• Spektor has said that she has created a great number of songs, but that she rarely writes any of them down.
• She has also stated that she never aspired to write songs herself, but songs seem to just flow to her.
• Spektor's songs are not usually autobiographical, but rather are based on scenarios and characters drawn from her imagination and her songs show influences from folk, punk, rock, Jewish, Russian, hip hop, jazz, and classical music.
• 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.
• Spektor has a broad vocal range and uses the full extent of it. She explores a variety of different and somewhat unorthodox vocal techniques, such as verses composed entirely of buzzing noises made with the lips and beatbox-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 the piano or chair.
• Part of her style also results from the exaggeration of certain aspects of vocalization.
• Her lyrics are equally eclectic, often taking the form of abstract narratives or first-person character studies, similar to short stories or vignettes put to song.
• Spektor usually sings in English, though she sometimes includes a few words or verses of Latin, Russian, French, and other languages in her songs. She also plays with pronunciations.
• In her songs, "Eet", "Us" and "Après Moi" the titular sounds are used as the focal point throughout.

Awards

• Begin to Hope – Shortlist Music Prize (nominated)
• Studio8's Female Voice of August 2009 (won)
• Soul and Jazz Awards, Best Artist of the Year Act Alternative (won)
• Far – Soul and Jazz Awards, Best Album Alternative of the Year (won)
• "Laughing With" – Soul and Jazz Awards, Best Alternative Song (nominated)