Regina Spektor

Having emerged from New York’s anti-folk milieu, singer/songwriter Regina Spektor crafts idiosyncratic, wide-ranging yet deeply intimate songs. A pianist steeped in classical technique whose voice frequently blends warmth with punk edge, her recorded work has moved from the austere, home-made Songs (2002) through the singular adult-alternative pop of her first Top 20 entry, Begin to Hope (2006), to the occasionally symphonic Remember Us to Life (2016). Along the way she traded verses with everyone from the Strokes to Joshua Bell. Among her most conspicuous standalone pieces are the Grammy-nominated “You’ve Got Time,” written for Orange Is the New Black, and the Ben Folds duet cover of “Dear Theodosia” that appeared on The Hamilton Mixtape. Her eighth full-length, 2022’s Home, before and after, intertwines the pop, stripped-down acoustic, and sweeping orchestral palettes heard on earlier releases.

Raised in Moscow until she turned nine, Spektor absorbed her father’s illicit cassettes of Western pop and rock while also studying piano. After she and her family relocated to the Bronx—the only Russian household to arrive in the borough in two decades—she absorbed American culture yet remained anchored in a circle that fused her Russian Jewish heritage with her new surroundings. She kept practicing wherever space allowed, including her synagogue, until her household finally acquired its own instrument.

Further classical study took her to the SUNY Purchase Music Conservatory, where she first encountered blues and jazz, most notably Billie Holiday. Those influences left a lasting mark on her self-released debut, 11:11, issued in 2001. Simultaneously she performed wherever possible—in basements, at parties, even inside comedy clubs. The steady gigs and a second self-released collection, Songs (2002), attracted the attention of They Might Be Giants drummer Alan Bezozi, who introduced her to producer Gordon Raphael. Together they recorded her third album, Soviet Kitsch, in New York and London, the latter sessions featuring Kill Kenada. Initially issued independently, Soviet Kitsch received wider distribution via Sire Records in mid-2004, the same year Spektor appeared on the Strokes B-side “Modern Girls & Old Fashion Men.”

Opening slots for the Strokes, Kings of Leon, and Kimya Dawson of the Moldy Peaches expanded her audience, as did a U.K. tour that propelled the single “Us” and prompted the early-2006 CD/DVD anthology Mary Ann Meets the Gravediggers & Other Short Stories. That June Sire released Begin to Hope, her first album of new material for the label; it earned gold certification in the United States and reached the Top 20 while also finding favor across the Atlantic. The following year she joined Sondre Lerche for the duet “Hell No,” featured in the Steve Carell comedy Dan in Real Life.

After several years of touring and writing, Spektor returned in June 2009 with Far, an album shaped by an array of high-profile producers including Jeff Lynne, David Kahne, Mike Elizondo, and Garret “Jacknife” Lee; it climbed to number three on the Billboard 200. That September she supplied vocals for “Left Hand Song” on Joshua Bell’s chart-topping classical set At Home with Friends. Her first live album, Live in London, captured a 2010 performance at the Hammersmith Apollo and appeared later that year. Reuniting with Elizondo in Los Angeles, she tracked What We Saw from the Cheap Seats, released by Sire in May 2012 and again peaking at number three. In July 2013 the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black premiered with her original theme “You’ve Got Time,” which earned a Grammy nomination for Best Song Written for Visual Media.

Remember Us to Life, her seventh studio album, arrived in September 2016 with orchestral accompaniment on several tracks and reached number 23 on the Billboard 200. That autumn a live Soundstage session filmed at Chicago’s WTTW studios aired on PBS; BMG Soundstage issued the multi-format recording in March 2017. Spektor contributed the original “Birdsong” to Amazon Prime’s The Romanoffs in 2018 and held a residency at Broadway’s Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in June 2019. Later that year “One Little Soldier,” another screen-commissioned song, featured in the film Bombshell.

Blending pop, elegant piano, and vivid orchestral textures, her next album, Home, before and after, was captured upstate with co-producer John Congleton and released by Sire/Warner in June 2022. Later the same year she reissued 11:11 in both digital and physical editions, appending the bonus disc Papa’s Bootlegs—a set of her father’s early live recordings.