About Opentopia
Opentopia Directory Encyclopedia Tools

Regina Spektor

Encyclopedia : R : RE : REG : Regina Spektor

Regina Spektor
Enlarge
Regina Spektor

Regina Spektor (b. February 18, 1980 in Moscow, Soviet Union (now Russia)), is a singer-songwriter and pianist. Spektor moved with her family to the Bronx, New York, at age nine. Her music is associated with the anti-folk scene centered on New York City's East Village.

Contents

Early life

Spektor comes from 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, during the period of Perestroika when Jewish citizens were permitted to emigrate. 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 attended 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.

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 written 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," and Boris Pasternak in "Après Moi"), 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.

Performances

Since c. 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, 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 a Jewish music festival in New York City.

Her recognition in the United Kingdom was somewhat enhanced in late 2005 when her song "Us" was used in a commercial as part of the "What Do You Want To Watch?" series for Sky Television. The advert features an impressive clip from a documentary on skateboarder Danny Way.

While on tour with The Strokes she performed the song "Modern Girls and 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.

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..., has been released worldwide.

Albums

Singles and EPs

Compilations

External links

Articles

Listening

Interviews

Songs

Video

See also

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

Search Titles
0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJ
KLMNOPQRST
UVWXYZ?

E-mail this article to:

Personal Message: