Ayal Yariv has been a professional musician for over twenty years. His experience includes piano performance, piano accompaniment, and music teaching, as well as performing on a variety of Renaissance-era keyboard and woodwind instruments.

Ayal performs at Renaissance fairs on soprano, alto, tenor, and bass recorders, soprano, alto tenor, and bass crumhorns, pipe and tabor, different sizes of  penny whistle, portative organ, ocarina, virginal, and harpsichord. He is not shy about strumming on a guitar, banging on drums, singing and dancing, and getting audience members to join him in the fun.

Ayal has worked as a musician for churches, schools, synagogues, universities, theatres, improv groups, ballet studios, retirement homes and Renaissance festivals in Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Maine, New York, Maryland and Florida. He plays for all kinds of religious ceremonies, including funerals, bar and bat mitzvahs, weddings, baptisms, and holidays. Ayal has worked as a ballet accompanist and has participated as a stage character in a few local ballet performances. He has acted as a pianist, an assistant director, and a director for musicals and choirs at schools, churches and universities. Additionally, he has worked as a music teacher for groups and individuals and has much affection for the Suzuki method that he learned while accompanying at a violin Suzuki-method studio.

Ayal has a degree in musicology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a music therapy certificate from David Yellin Teachers College, and he incorporates these experiences into his approach to music and performance.

His educational background gives Ayal an historical as well as an emotional perspective to his performances. He participated in the Mark Morris Dance Accompanist Training Program and earned a certificate from the Music Together Teacher Program. Both programs helped him to develop aspects of movement and a sense of playfulness in his performing approach.

In his journey as a musician, Ayal has gathered knowledge and experiences that help him adapt to new and different circumstances, and he continually challenges himself to live outside of his comfort zone. One of his goals is to continue to travel around the country so he can and to see and experience all 50 states as a musician.

Ayal plays and improvises in both the classical and jazz repertoires, incorporating hymns, show tunes, standards, popular music, and Renaissance-era dance, song, and theatre into his performances. Because there are so many opportunities when approaching music and performance, Ayal is always searching for new musical instruments and material.

Both Ayal and his Renaissance Festival character, Mistral the Minstrel, believe that music belongs to everyone, and that we should all have an opportunity to interact through the magic of music.