Riva Taylor

Taylor was born on June 29, 1988, in Hammersmith, London. She had her first experience on the stage at the age of seven in London's West End, playing Little Eponine at the Palace Theatre. Other early achievements include winning the Thorndike Talent competition for ages 8–24, and winning a British Arts Award for her dance performance of the Secret Garden, both of which she achieved at the age of 8. She also appeared on Blue Peter, performing "My Heart Will Go On" at the age of 10. She attended Danes Hill School, Surrey before studying for her GCSEs and A Levels at Tormead School, Guildford. Taylor has said that living the life of a normal school girl was important for somebody exposed to the music industry from a young age. Taylor is an Associate of the Royal Academy of Dance. Taylor graduated with a degree in history from the University of Durham in 2010. ==Career==

2001–2012: Early career At the age of 12, she landed a recording contract with EMI, While Taylor's first album entirely consisted of show tunes, her second one could be defined as a classical/pop crossover. Naturally a soprano, by 2005 she started using her "deeper range". In January and February 2012, she appeared as a guest artist on both The Soldiers and Alfie Boe's UK tours. 2017–2021: ''This Woman's Heart'' In 2017 Taylor released a club remix of her song "Deeper than Us" which charted at number #3 in the Music Week pop charts and was backed by Pete Tong on BBC Radio 1 and Tiesto on his Club Life In 2018 she released a single titled "My Mouth" which was selected by Sir Elton John for his Beats1 show Rocket Hour. In 2020 she released an album titled ''This Woman's Heart .1'', featuring the singles "This Woman's Heart", "Jealous" and "Running at Walls". She showcased the songs at British Summer Time where she supported Barbra Streisand. Taylor helped found the Songwriters' Circle in 2019, held at Roundhouse, London with Nashville songwriter Jeff Cohen. Later rebranded The Online Songwriters' Circle during the pandemic. In 2021 she released ''This Woman's Heart .2'' including BBC Radio 2 favourite "If I Could Ever Stop Loving You" and "Woman". 2021–present: Colours of Blue and Mexico In 2022 Taylor began writing songs between London and Mexico City, inspired by a love of jazz and the rhythms of Latin America. Her first release was a bossa nova song called "Colours of Blue" which Taylor performed live in Mexico on Sale el Sol (TV program). Her follow up single Cubano was supported by Los 40 and Exa FM and peaked at #17 in the radio charts In Mexico. In 2024 Taylor released a multi-cultured pop album Colours of Blue. ==TV, film and video games==

Taylor has performed the theme tunes for a number of film and TV programmes including BBC Christmas feature film Second Star to the Left starring Barbara Windsor and Hugh Laurie, Taylor performed the song "You Can Be a Hero" and the theme tune for Barbie as Rapunzel. In 2014 Taylor featured as a guest artist on the Video Games Live World Tour, performing her song from ''Assassin's Creed and Grammy nominated music from Journey''. Some venues included the Eventim Apollo, London and the Heineken Music Hall, Amsterdam. Taylor also opened the Bafta Game Awards where she performed and presented the award for music with film composer David Arnold. ==Discography==

Albums Extended plays Singles ; As Becky Taylor • 2001: "You Can Be a Hero" (EMI Classics) • 2001: "Song of Dreams" (EMI Classics) — reached #60 in the UK ; As Riva Taylor • My Mouth (2018) • Running at Walls (2018) • ''This Woman's Heart'' (2019) • Jealous (2020) • If I Could Ever Stop Loving You (2020) • Woman (2021) • Colours of Blue (2022) • No Protection (2022) • Cubano (2023) == References ==