Ayriole Frost

Musician & Educator

2017 3Arts Awards / 2019 The Rauschenberg Residency

Teaching Arts

Ayriole Frost is a Chicago-based costume artist, composer, performer, and teaching artist whose work centers collaborative art-making, storytelling, and arts education. As a lead teaching artist with Idea Box Integrated Arts, they design and facilitate interdisciplinary arts experiences that integrate visual art, performance, costume design, music, and student-driven creative processes. Their work emphasizes community-building, imaginative exploration, and helping students connect academic concepts through hands-on artistic practice.

Alongside their work as a teaching artist, Ayriole is an active costume and fiber artist whose creative practice blends fashion, theatrical design, and collaborative performance. Their artistic work frequently incorporates wearable art and multimedia elements, reflecting a deep interest in how costume can shape narrative, identity, and audience experience.

Ayriole also serves on the faculty at North Park University, where they teach music theory, aural skills, composition, and chamber music coaching. Their background in socially engaged arts education includes co-founding Shift: Englewood Youth Orchestra, an El Sistema-inspired youth development program on Chicago’s Southwest Side, and leading workshops for creative youth music programs nationwide, including Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s OrchKids program.

They received a Bachelor of Music from Ball State University and a Master of Music in Composition and teaching certification from Carnegie Mellon University. Ayriole also completed the Sistema Fellowship Program at New England Conservatory, where they trained in leadership, curriculum, and arts-based social change. They continue to compose, perform as a singer and violist, and create interdisciplinary work that bridges music, costume, fiber arts, and performance.

Profile image by: George Aye

Photo of Ayriole, a brown skinned Black person, wearing a black tunic, grey leggings and black shoes. They stand in a room full of people in bright colored t-shirts, holding string instruments, some on wood risers. Ayriole is pointing and holding a viola.

Ayriole Frost leading a performance at a workshop for Bravo Orchestra program in Portland, OR.

Featured Artworks

Photo of Ayriole, a brown skinned Black person, under reddish stage lighting, wearing a light-colored button-down shirt, playing their violin on a stage with other band members behind them

Ayriole Frost fronts the band Plastic City Photo Credit Zeb Carter

Ayriole, a brown skinned Black person with their back to the camera, on a low lit stage conducting a string ensemble. A string of international flags hang above the stage and a projected image reads "sustainable development goals"

Ayriole conducts the North Park University Orchestra performing "Changing Chaos" screen grab from YouTube video Changing Chaos was a work commissioned by North Park University Orchestra and written by Shift:Englewood Youth Orchestra Students, transcribed for orchestra by Ayriole Frost, to address issues of climate change.

Ayriole Frost composing at the piano at the Rauschenberg Residency in 2019 Photo credit: Mark Poucher

Green Lantern Ayriole Frost as Sojourner Mullein, Green Lantern Photo credit: Zeb Carter

Ayriole Frost at Chicago School of Shoemaking and Leather Ayriole is working hard creating the custom boots for their imagining of Syenite from N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth Trilogy

Gandalf the White Ayriole Frost as Gandalf the White Photo credit: Zeb Carter Ayriole created their own version of Gandalf the White from The Two Towers. Here you can see several garments they handmade as part of this costume.