Riva Nyri Précil

Riva Nyri Prècil (born March 28, 1989, Brooklyn, New York) is a Haitian-American singer, songwriter, and author.

Riva Nyri Précil was born in Brooklyn. Her mother, Michelle Karshan, is an American of Russian-Irish descent and ran a radio station in the 80’s called “Sak Pase” while her father, Privat Précil was a Haitian who worked in the US as a journalist and lawyer. Riva and her family moved to Haiti she was five years old as her mother got a job in Haiti. Her mother worked for the Haitian government specifically on foreign press liaising, using her foreign heritage as an advantage to manage the foreign press who visited Haiti.

While growing up in Haiti, Riva was exposed to and studied under many of the great masters of Haiti's cultural and artistic scene. She was in a theatre troupe, Ateliee Edoision, and took various dancing with Viviane Gauthier and Artcho Danse— sculpting, painting, and singing classes, which will later develop her as a wholesome artist skilled in several aspects of art. Riva learned her sculpting and painting skills from renowned Haitian artist, Jean-Claude "Tiga" Garoute. In her early teens, Riva already started to teach art classes to young children who were in her neighborhood.

She was already musically influenced by her mother as she listened to exotic and various genres of music from all over the world starting from jazz and soul, to Indian and Arabic music. As her family was very open-minded to experience, she visited lots of Haitian Vodou ceremonies, learning both the beautiful and eerie parts of the Vodou culture. When Riva was fifteen she had to leave Haiti and return to New York because of the dangerous condition of Haiti due to a 2004 Haitian coup d'état.

While back in New York, she attended LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts as a sophomore where she majored in vocal performance. She soon graduated in 2007 and continued her education at Loyola University of New Orleans. She received her BA in Music Therapy from Loyola University of New Orleans in 2011 then completed her one-year residency in New York at Beth Israel Hospital.

She returned to the United States as a teenager and attended LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts. After graduating from LaGuardia High School for Performing Arts, she received her BA in Music Therapy from the Loyola University of New Orleans in 2011 and continued on to complete her one-year residency in New York at Beth Israel Hospital.

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