Jaebong Rho creates listening experiences that begin after the final sound. His music builds open narratives where structural clarity and interpretive space coexist. It invites listeners to connect what they hear to their own lived experience, translating pressing social and psychological questions into rigorous forms. His recent works reflect these thematic concerns. The orchestral work "i want to go home." (2023/24) engages with East Asia's aging society and dementia, revealing an experience where the familiar and the unfamiliar intersect through repetition and structure. diorama (2024/25) focuses on the post-truth era, exploring how contrasting perceptions of reality lead to social fracture. In chamber music, agitpropiece (2025) responds to the declaration of martial law in South Korea in 2024. sole (2026), for solo violin and large ensemble, traces the lifecycle of authoritarian power, from the crowd's desire that summons the demagogue to the systems of exclusion that endure long after. Rather than simply illustrating a topic, he builds musical structures in which instability, rupture, or fragile coherence can be felt directly in the act of listening. Rho served as the Composer-in-Residence for the Korean National Symphony Orchestra (2024–25), premiering multiple commissioned works. He received two artist grants from the Busan Cultural Foundation, which supported his portrait recitals in 2021 and 2023, and won the Busan Philharmonic Orchestra Commissioning Competition. At the Lucerne Festival Academy Composer Seminar, he worked with Dieter Ammann and Unsuk Chin, collaborating with the IEMA-Ensemble. His First Prize in the Ensemble Écoute Composition Competition earned him a commission, with the premiere forthcoming. A grant from ARTZenter supported the completion of a new work, which was subsequently performed by the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. He has been recognized with the ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Award. At the Remus Georgescu International Music Festival Competition, he worked with Beat Furrer. His music was featured at the Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik, performed by the IEMA-Ensemble. He has been selected as a composer for the Talea Recording Workshop. He was commissioned by the Yale School of Music through the Planetary Engagement Competition, with support from Gene Pinover. Most recently, he has been named a 2026 Composition Fellow at the Aspen Music Festival and School. Rho holds a Bachelor of Music in Composition from Pusan National University and received his Master of Music from the Yale School of Music, where he studied with Aaron Jay Kernis, Christopher Theofanidis, Katherine Balch, and David Lang. He will begin his PhD in Composition at Princeton University in the fall of 2026.