Regina Ilyinichna Spektor (/r??d?i?n? ?sp?kt?r/, Russian: Реги?нa Ильи?нична Спе?ктор, IPA: [r???ɡ?in? ?sp??kt?r]; born February 18, 1980)[1] is a Russian-born American singer-songwriter and pianist. She was born in Moscow (then in the Soviet Union, now Russia), and began classical training on the piano at the age of six.[2] When she was nine and a half years old, her family emigrated from the Soviet Union to the United States, where she continued her classical training into her teenage years; she began to write original songs shortly thereafter.