Regina Spektor

1980 Regina Ilyinichna Spektor was born to a Jewish family in Moscow, and became is a Russian American singer-songwriter and pianist. She learned how to play the piano by practicing on a Petrof upright that her grandfather gave her mother. The family left the Soviet Union in 1989, when Regina was nine. She attended a Highschool in New Jersey. Her career as a singer-songwriter started in 2004 when she was signed by Warner Brothers Records. Her music is associated with the anti-folk scene centered on New York City's East Village. I think she's extraordinary.