Nika Ko (they/them) is a Los Angeles based pianist, music educator, and freelance composer for films and other visual media. They are currently a contributing composer for Morris and Young, the sync licensing library, and an instructor at Bloom School of Music and Dance and the Hollywood Academy of Music and Arts. Ko has also worked as a contract composer, music supervisor, and music editor for companies like Armadillo Media and Entertainment, 6andLine Productions, and Kino Lorber. One highlight is Ko’s commissioned score for an archival short film shot by Thomas Edison.

 

A graduate of Berklee College of Music, Ko studied piano and film composition with mentors including Grammy-winner Claudio Ragazzi, NEA jazz-master Joanne Brackeen, and 4-time Grammy-winner Terri Lyne Carrington. Ko worked as a composer assistant for Ms. Carrington on her score for Black Girls Play: The Story of Hand Games, which won best documentary short at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival. 

 

Ko also ran social media and communications for Carrington’s groundbreaking education project, the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice from 2023 to 2024.

 

Ko's scores include contributions to a feature length documentary about the Bollywood film industry entitled Dream Factory, which screened at the Indian Film Festival in Stuttgart, Germany, and the entire score for the horror/comedy short Red Dot Special, which earned an honorable mention at LA’s Horrorific Women’s Film Festival. 

 

Throughout all of their creative work, Ko maintains an ethos of radical empathy and curiosity. Ko aims to use their music as a vehicle to understand, connect with, and transmit the stories of humanity in all its infinite expressions.

 

You can hear Ko's work as a jazz and improvisational pianist on Fall Raye’s album “Fall,” on Boomslang Records.