Yuval Amihai is an Israeli-born jazz guitarist, composer, and educator, raised in the Negev Desert city of Beer Sheva and now based in New York City's East Village. He began piano lessons at age eight and switched to electric guitar at thirteen, and by sixteen was already leading his own bands and playing professionally around Israel. During his military service he was commissioned to compose chamber pieces for guitar, piano, and string quartet for Beer Sheva's own Municipal Symphonic Orchestra. He studied at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and at the Rimon School of Music in the Tel Aviv area, where he was a finalist in the school's jazz competition, working with some of the country's leading jazz teachers in composition, piano, and classical guitar.

In 2005, at 24, Amihai relocated to Paris, where he spent two years in the jazz department of the city's regional conservatory (the CRR de Paris). By 2008 he had formed his own quintet, the Yuval Amihai Ensemble, gigging regularly at Parisian jazz rooms including Sunset/Sunside, Baiser Salé, and Le Duc des Lombards, and opening for artists such as Bojan Z's Tetraband, Rabih Abou-Khalil, and bassist Avishai Cohen. The Ensemble won first prize at the 2008 Jazz à Saint-Germain-des-Prés competition and, in 2009, the Grand Prize for Best Ensemble plus the Best Composer Prize at the National Jazz Competition of La Défense, adding a third-place finish at the Hoeilaart International Jazz Competition in Belgium. The Ensemble's 2012 self-titled debut album, featuring saxophonists Damien Fleau and Étienne Bouyer alongside bassist Olivier Degabriele and drummer Gautier Garrigue, drew a composition grant from the French performing-rights society SACEM; a Citizen Jazz review of the record singled out its "lyricism" and its debt to Israeli folk material.

Amihai pared his working band down to a trio for Longing (2015, L'Autre Distribution), with bassist Damien Varaillon and drummer Gautier Garrigue, an album of standards ("Skylark," "Lover Man," "My Romance," "Sandu," "Without a Song") alongside originals, played with a minimalist, effects-free approach that reviewers linked to Wes Montgomery and Jim Hall. I Ain't Got Nothin' But the Blues (2018) followed as his first release for the Barcelona-based Fresh Sound New Talent label, again with Varaillon and Garrigue, joined on three tracks by trumpeter Hermon Mehari and tenor saxophonist Amit Friedman; the record mixes standards by Michel Legrand, Duke Ellington, Cole Porter, and Keith Jarrett with three Amihai originals ("Old New Song," "Eviatar," "Yuli") built around chapters of his own life story.

Amihai moved to New York City in 2018, where he has performed at venues including Smalls, Mezzrow, Zinc Bar, and Café Bohemia, and has held a standing monthly residency at Ornithology Jazz Club (first Saturdays) for more than two years, alongside regular dates at Alphabet City Beer Company and C&B Cafe. His fourth album, My 90s Summer (Fresh Sound Records), was recorded June 24, 2021 at Big Orange Sheep Studios in Brooklyn and released May 24, 2023. Described by Amihai as "my most personal work to date," it reflects on his path from the Negev to Paris to New York, led by a working quartet of pianist David Kikoski, bassist Eric Wheeler, and drummer Jeremy Dutton, with guest appearances from flutist Itai Kriss, tenor saxophonist Julieta Eugenio, and trumpeter Wayne Tucker. AllAboutJazz called it "a remarkably focused date showcasing a talent deserving greater recognition," and Jazz Journal heard "a pleasing style on guitar, sometimes sounding like Herb Ellis in some of his phrasing." Amihai also teaches improvisation, theory, and ensemble playing at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music.

Amihai's music sits inside the American jazz-guitar mainstream — clean, largely effects-free tone, a strong blues and standards vocabulary, and phrasing reviewers have compared to Wes Montgomery, Jim Hall, and Herb Ellis — while folding in original compositions that draw directly on his Negev Desert childhood and Israeli/Hebraic material: My 90s Summer's "MEDB (Middle Eastern Desert Blues)" and "Yitgaber," and I Ain't Got Nothin' But the Blues's "Pizmon La Yakinton," all sit alongside American standards and blues repertoire in the same sets and albums. Reviewers have repeatedly noted a documentary quality to his writing — each album functioning as a chapter of his own biography, from the 2012 Ensemble record's Israeli-folk lyricism through My 90s Summer's reflections on Beer Sheva, Paris, and New York — combined with a collaborative, band-forward approach that favors a working unit's chemistry over solo display.