Award-winning composer, arranger, and performer Erik Aho has written music for film, television, commercials, and video games.
Aho’s feature film credits include the massive 70-minute orchestral score for the feature thriller Magnum Opus, directed by Kevin Elliott. the score for Matt Thompson's noir-adventure-comdey feature Debunkers and the minimalist score for the independent feature Brown's Canyon, directed by award-winning Seattle filmmaker and documentarian John Helde. Aho’s other credits include orchestration on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 on the ABC hits Quantico and Castle, as well as on Timeless (NBC), The Whispers (ABC), and the FOX juggernauts The Family Guy and American Dad. Aho has also written music for the reality show hits The Amazing Race (CBS), The Bachelor (ABC), Blood Relatives (Discovery), and The Miracle Workers (ABC). Recently he composed music for several short films by emerging directors Kevin Molina-Ortiz (Stardust Echoes) and Matt Thompson (Lucy - VR Experience, Wild West Fan Co.).
Aho composed music for numerous critically acclaimed and commercially successful video games:
No One Lives Forever – numerous critics named this “Game of the Year” (Gamespy, PC Gamer,Computer Gaming World, Computer Games Magazine)
Drakan: The Ancients’ Gates - Play magazine called it the “finest 3D medieval action-adventure game to grace any console” and Gaming Age praised it for “breathtaking visuals, magnificent audio, and extraordinary game play”; both gave it their highest rating of 100/100
The Suffering - Midway’s action-horror title sold over 1.5 million units was hailed by critics and gamers alike
In the summer of 2013, ASCAP invited Aho to attend its prestigious Film and Television Composer’s Workshop. At the conclusion of the Workshop, Aho received the 2013 ASCAP Foundation’s David Rose Award along with the attendant grant.. He also received the 2013 RMALA (Recording Musicians Association of Los Angeles) Grant, an honor given to one composer by over 60 musicians from the Hollywood film scoring community.
Aho is co-founder of the commercial music production company WaxLab (www.waxlabmusic.com), whose clients have included Honda, Activision, Adobe, and Nature Made.
Erik began his career as an instrumentalist/performer and string-arranger for Brandi Carlile (Columbia), Unwritten Law (Interscope), The Fighting Machinists (Interscope), Longview UK (Columbia), and Default (TVT).
Aho earned a BA in Philosophy from the University of Washington and studied music at Berklee College of Music under the auspices of Gary Burton and at UCLA under former CBS music executive/composer Robert Drasnin. He lives in Burbank, California, with his wife, two daughters, and dog.