Estéfano Gutiérrez Larco, known as Estéfano Larko, was born in Quito, Ecuador on May 7, 2001. Self-taught how to play the flute, write and read in western notation and theory, he slowly developed his compositional skills with an emphasis on performance from age 14.

 

After a couple of years Estéfano found videos of bass performances from Stuart Hamm, Les Claypool and many more legends, deciding to dive deep into this instrument. Around this beginner period, he broke his left arm on a school trip while trying to do parkour. This event would bond his relationship with the instrument, as learning it helped him for a full recovery from the injury.

 

In 2020, Estéfano’s next pivotal moment came with the discovery of Jaco Pastorius. The sound of fretless bass was ear-opening, and when his parents bought him a new bass, he decided to make the old one fretless. After falling in love with it, Estéfano sold the newer bass to tune up the fretless one. His dad was mad, but he didn't care.

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In 2019, he moved to florida. There he would meet Sercan Gündoğdu, who would become a core friendship and the door to the world of Turkish music. Sercan taught Estéfano all about the music in turkey, the classical stuff, the folk stuff, balkan, gypsy, arabic, etc. Forever shaping his voice and style both in playing and composing.

 

At this time, Estéfano independently produced his first album: Experience, a conceptual work for telling the stories and characters that have been the most influential in his life until then: family, friends and experiences. One night around this production stage, a friend online suggested: “you should do a song about monkey soup” -a topic that is a meme in latin america- and so he did. It was the first single he published alongside a home-made videoclip from a friend in ecuador: Sopa de Makako, this “joke” song would become very popular, later on having a re-invention at an enhanced level both musically and visually wise; now carrying a much deeper message about society, corruption and taboos.

 

When the pandemic was over, around 2021, Estéfano got the chance to come back to Quito. Here, he finished the production of his next album: tltltl, where the influence of turkish music in the compositional style is clear, alongside the addition of a new instrument that he learned to play, the oud. Followed the production of Al soñar te ví bailando y yo mi corazón te volví a sentir, originally intended to be a 30-minute single, then transformed to album format, it’s a conceptual work dedicated to a yearned lover and a milestone of production and compositional work at the time. Estéfano gave several concerts between Quito and Miami during these years, alongside having a key role in other projects like producing the OST of Stash, an independent ecuadorian film, other album releases and a re-master of Experience. 

In 2023, he received a full-tuition scholarship award from Berklee College of Music, where he currently studies and leads many Andean and world fusion programs and projects. He co-lead and participated with his band Yahuar Kedi in the Ecuador Jazz Fest 2024. As well as being a recurrent guest artist in the south american tour of the peruvian saxofonist Diego Herrera. Lately releasing a live album of his original compositions El Disque Chukllu, and El Mañaná, a single featuring the greek singer and composer María Delaporta. His latest performances have been with the Ensamble del Viento Ecuador (The Ecuador Wind Ensemble) in the International Flute Festival 2025 and the pre-eliminary auditions for the Quito Fest 2025, where he performed both bass and toyo (bass panflute).