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He was born in Pilsen on February 24, 1929, in Volhynian Kupičov, on the Polish-Ukrainian border. Jaroslav began his schooling in a Polish school. After the Soviet Union annexed western Ukraine in 1939, he attended a school with Ukrainian as the language of instruction, then a Czech school in Lutsk, where he completed the 6th and 7th grades. In the autumn of 1946, he was admitted to the 8th grade of the local Ukrainian boys' ten-year school. During his childhood, he thus came into contact with four Slavic languages in school or daily life: Czech, Polish, Ukrainian,

He showed an interest in music from an early age, learning to play the violin and performing in church services in Lutsk.

In 1947, the family returned to Czechoslovakia and settled in the small village of Tlestky near Jesenice in the Rakovník region. Jaroslav Fiala completed his secondary education at the Žatec Gymnasium in June 1948. He then enrolled at the Faculty of Education in Pilsen, where he graduated in 1951, majoring in Music Education, Russian, and Civic Education. Additionally, he privately studied violin under Professor Jiří Zita and studied harmony and composition under the Pilsen composer Josef Bartovský.

After his studies, Jaroslav Fiala began his teaching career at primary schools in Kraslice and Rotava and served as deputy principal at a primary school in Oloví near Sokolov. In 1960, he was appointed as an assistant professor at the newly established Pedagogical Institute in Karlovy Vary, from which he transferred in 1965 to the Department of Music Education at the Faculty of Education in Pilsen. From 1965, this faculty was the only center for university-level teacher training in the West Bohemian region.

In 1971, he earned the title PhDr., and he defended his candidate of pedagogical sciences degree in 1990, alongside his colleague Vlasta Bokůvková from the department. These were the first post-November 1989 defenses at the Faculty of Education of Charles University. Professor Jarmila Vrchotová-Pátová, a member of the commission, advocated for the possibility of defending his extensive candidate dissertation, which was already twenty years old. In 1992, J. Fiala underwent habilitation at the University of Ostrava and received the academic title of associate professor in Music Education.

The focus of his teaching work was primarily on the history of music and instrument playing. Since 1970, he worked as the department's secretary, and after 1989, he also served as the deputy head of the department. During his forty-four years at this institution, through his teaching and lecturing activities, he contributed to the education of hundreds of young music education teachers for all levels of schools.

"I didn't have a teaching role model or specific methods to follow. I taught more intuitively. I always tried to present music history or theory clearly, with proper explanations of technical terms, and using various interesting facts that I knew would engage the students," he used to say about his teaching. In the last period of his teaching career, his students were already mature individuals, enhancing their knowledge at the University of the Third Age. They appreciated his teaching mastery in a survey, and Associate Professor Fiala was recognized as the best teacher at the University of the Third Age, along with Associate Professor Vlasta Bokůvková.

Jaroslav Fiala's research and publication activities are closely linked in content and location to his teaching work, which throughout his life intertwined with music-historical research focused on regional music history. Considering that J. Fiala spent most of his life working only with primary archival sources, without access to other, now commonly available information sources, or the ability to process and store texts on a computer, the volume and extent of his work are incredible, and the results of his research are admirable.

May he rest in peace!