Regina Spektor

b. 18 February 1980, Moscow, Russia. Piano balladeer Spektor lived in Russia, Austria and Italy prior to moving with her family to the Bronx, New York City, at the age of nine. Her parents' musical training - her mother was employed as a music historian and her father played the violin - undoubtedly rubbed off on the young Spektor, and she began to receive classical training on the piano while resident in Moscow. Despite having to leave the family piano behind in Moscow, Spektor continued playing whenever she could and in her late teens enrolled at the Conservatory of Music at SUNY Purchase in upstate New York. She began writing her own piano-based songs during this period and teamed up with jazz bass player Chris Kuffner to record her debut, 2001's 11:11, pressing up a 1,000 copies to sell at her gigs.

Spektor was by now a popular draw on the NYC café circuit and was championed as a leading light on the city's hip "anti-folk" scene. A follow-up, Songs, was recorded on Christmas Day 2001 and released on Spektor's own label early the following year. Her wry, literate songwriting style drew comparisons to the work of another piano-based singer-songwriter, Fiona Apple, and attracted the attention of Strokes producer Gordon Raphael. Spektor signed a recording contract with Raphael's Shoplifter Records label (distributed by Sire Records) and recorded Soviet Kitsch in New York and London, working with UK-based art-punk combo Kill Kenada on several tracks.

During the same period, Spektor toured with both the Strokes and the Kings Of Leon. She signed a major label contract with Sire and began work on her debut for the company. Released in summer 2006, Begin To Hope was a more mainstream recording than her earlier material, but the strength of Spektor's songwriting on tracks such as "On The Radio", "Après Moi" and the closing "Summer In The City" allayed fears that she had lost her touch.