Ahko is a performing artist, composer, arranger, and sound designer who seeks to bring a nuanced, genre-bending approach to his music and soundscapes.
Born in Seoul, South Korea, and raised in the cultural mixing pot of Los Angeles, Ahko’s love for music and the arts bloomed at a young age. After experimenting with various instruments and artistic expressions as a child, he picked up the guitar at the age of 14, longing to perform and compose music in the spirit that shaped his childhood. Today, his sound is inspired by jazz-fusion, film scores, and a colorful palette of experimental flavors while remaining humbly rooted in his film and video game music background.
Following extensive live and studio appearances, Ahko branched out into music education—dedicating a decade of his early adult life to teaching as a music instructor within local academia. With a desire to color his playing with the world’s vastly varied hues and sounds, he later sought out an education as diverse as his upbringing at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. There, he studied guitar performance with Norman Zocher and Tim Miller, composition with Joe Carrier and Dr. Anne H. Goldberg-Baldwin, and music production with Simone Scazzocchio.
After graduating from Berklee College of Music, Ahko pursued his graduate studies at Berklee’s international campus in Valencia, Spain, where he studied contemporary guitar performance under Ivan Cebrian and jazz improvisation with Latin Grammy nominee Perico Sambeat. He is also a proud mentee of Colombian jazz luminary Juan Diego Chandra Dhas.
Ahko’s career has brought him to scenes and stages across the United States, Spain, and Japan. Today, he continues to push the boundaries of his artistry as an active performer, composer, arranger, and sound designer for himself and his collaborators.
“Listening is the key to everything good in music.”
— Pat Metheny