Seongmin Ahn (안성민) is a South Korean jazz guitarist and composer who works in Seoul. His one recording so far is The Lake, a nine-track album of his own pieces made with a quartet and released on November 29, 2023. The album was produced through Jarasum Jazz Festival's "Searching for Jazzmen" programme for emerging Korean players. He is billed as Seongmin Ahn on the cover of that album and on Spotify and Apple Music, which is why the name is written here in that form. The festival's own pages use Ahn Seongmin and Ahn Sung-min, MusicBrainz and some club listings carry the band as the Seongmin Ahn Quartet, and Seoul clubs bill him in Hangul as 안성민.

His birth date and birthplace are not published in any source found. The one hint about his age comes from the programme that selected him: Searching for Jazzmen was open to players under 29 when it launched in 2023, so he was under 29 that year. The biography printed with the album's CD listing at Yes24 says he graduated from the Department of Postmodern Music at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, won a gold prize at a Kyung Hee practical-music competition, took gold at the Daegu International Jazz Festival with a quintet led by Kim Tae-guk (김태국), and played guitar in a project called Life and Sound. That biography does not give years for any of these, and no interview or longer biography of him has turned up.

Searching for Jazzmen was launched in 2023 by the Jarasum Jazz Festival with support from the Arts Council Korea. The festival described it as a way to find and support budding artists in the Korean jazz scene, with one-to-one mentoring, special lectures, appearances at rising festivals, album production support and promotional kits. In its first year it selected 12 performance teams, 3 album production teams and 4 festival organizers. His quartet was one of the three album teams, alongside the Kim Deokhwa Trio and the Yoo Taekeon Quartet, and the three were showcased on October 9, 2023 at the festival's Welcome Post venue, where his group played at 14:20. The album's makers received mentoring through the Sori-e Naite Music Company (소리의 나이테 음악회사), the album distributor that was a partner of the programme; Apple Music lists the album's copyright as Sorienaite Music Company, 2023.

The festival introduced the band as a group formed around the guitarist that pursues avant-garde and free music, playing honestly, expressively and delicately and putting the experiences and feelings of daily life into its pieces. It described Ahn as a guitarist who uses uncommon sound effects and bold playing. The other three members are the saxophonist Kim Sangbeom (김상범), praised in the same text for his free improvisation, the bassist Hong Seungmin (홍승민), whose warm tone and unexpected lines it singled out, and the drummer Gideok Moon (문기덕, spelled Moon Gideok on the festival's page), described as skilled at calm, restrained playing and at drawing on a variety of sound sources. The CD listing says the three had played with him since their university days. MusicBrainz dates the group from 2022.

The Lake followed in November 2023. All nine pieces are Ahn's compositions. The label's notes say they use jazz, blues, rock, classical, ambient and world music as footholds for avant-garde jazz, and that each piece takes a feeling or a memory from daily life as its subject. The notes describe "Karma" as a piece about holding on to oneself and doing good in the face of trials, "Lonely Man" as the story of a solitary man, and "F.C.D" as a portrait of his dog in its energetic youth, written when the dog was 11 years old and no longer moved much. "Dal" came from the moon he saw while writing before dawn, "Eternal Rest" is an elegy for people who have died, and "Biwa Lake" was written after he saw his own reflection in Lake Biwa in Japan. "Depressive Psychopathy" renders a depressive state, "Alien" imagines an invasion with instruments imitating an alien language and deliberate dissonance, and "Way to Home" is a blues written on a tired walk home. The CD was recorded by 이병철, mixed and mastered by 윤정오, and has a cover designed by 리동.

The jazz columnist Yeo In-gyeong reviewed it for MM Jazz in February 2024 and chose it as one of the best Korean albums of 2023, remarking that a veteran releasing the same style might not have made his list. He wrote that the playing prefers slow, still tempos and aims at an ECM sound, named the trio of Paul Motian with Bill Frisell and Joe Lovano and the guitarist Jakob Bro as the likely reference points, praised the ease of the ensemble, and added that the music might one day need to go beneath its smooth surface, with writing and arranging pushed further. Seoul club listings show him still leading groups: JazzNode records his trio with Hong Seungmin on bass at Boogie Woogie on September 7, 2026 and at Club Evans on September 9, 2026, and a Seongmin Ahn Quartet booking at All That Jazz in Itaewon on September 10, 2026. No second album has been found.

Nationality is South Korean on the evidence of his training and work: a Korean university degree, selection for a Korean state-backed programme, a Korean-language release and regular Seoul club dates. His place of birth is not stated anywhere found.

The festival calls the music avant-garde and free, the label's notes name jazz, blues, rock, classical, ambient and world music as its sources, and the one detailed review hears a slow, spacious, ECM-minded record. The pieces run from 3:34 to 9:31, and the notes tie each to a plain image or feeling (a lake, the moon, a dog, a walk home) rather than to a form. The reviewer's comparisons to Paul Motian's trio and to Jakob Bro are his own and are not statements by the guitarist. Ahn has not published any account of his teachers or influences that was found.