The Julliard School
Finnish pianist Matti Raekallio, born 1954 in Helsinki, has established himself as a prominent concert artist with a huge repertoire. He is also an extremely active teacher, with simultaneous professor’s positions in two of the most prestigious institutions of music education: the Juilliard School in New York and the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hanover, Germany.
After studies in Finland, in England with Maria Diamond Curcio, in Austria at the Vienna Academy of Music with Dieter Weber and in Russia at the Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) Conservatory, Mr. Raekallio made his American debut in 1981 at the Carnegie (Weill) Recital Hall. Since then, he has made regular tours of the U.S.A., including solo recitals and performances with several American symphony orchestras.
He has performed complete cycles of the 32 Beethoven Sonatas, the 10 Scriabin Sonatas, and the nine Prokofieff Sonatas. He has also given performances of altogether 62 piano concertos. These include all
Matti Raekallio - Piano
of Beethoven, Brahms, Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev, as well as rarities like the concerti by Busoni, Szymanowski and Lutoslawski. He has made about 20 CDs, mostly for Ondine, of varied solo repertoire including an acclaimed set of the complete Prokofieff Sonatas, and of several piano concertos.
In 2007, Mr. Raekallio joined the faculty of the Juilliard School in New York, after becoming full professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hannover, Germany, in 2005. Before that, in 1998, he had become full professor at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, where his teaching work had started in 1978. Mr. Raekallio resigned from his Helsinki professorship in 2008. In addition, he has held professorships at the Swedish RCM in Stockholm and at Western Michigan University, USA. Mr. Raekallio’s students includes several top prize winners in international piano competitions, among them the First Prize laureates in Leeds, AXA Dublin, London, Vienna (Beethoven), New York (Artists International), and Budapest (Liszt-Bartók). He has been a juror in several international competitions, including Tel Aviv (Artur Rubinstein), Shanghai, Vienna (Beethoven), American Pianists’ Association, The Gilmore Prize, Tokyo (PTNA) and many others. He gives regular master classes in the USA, Finland, Israel, China, Japan, Germany, and many other countries.
Mr. Raekallio’s Doctorate (Dr.Mus) at the Sibelius Academy focused of the history of piano fingerings. Subsequently, Prof. Raekallio was a member of an international research team of cognitive psychology, investigating pianists' choice of fingering as a psychological process. Mr. Raekallio received the Leonie Sonning Foundation Grant (Denmark) in1980, and was three times altogether a recipient of the 5-year Artist Grant of the state of Finland. He served as member of the Finnish Academy’s Research Council for Culture and Society 1998-2000.