Matti Raekallio
Finnish pianist Matti Raekallio can look back at a 50-year career as international concert pianist and a 45-year career as pedagogue in top schools, including the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, the Hochschule in Hanover, Germany, and NYC’s Juilliard School, where he taught for 14 years.
He studied first in his home country and then with Maria Curcio in London, England, with Dieter Weber at the Vienna Academy of Music in Austria, and at the Leningrad Conservatory in Russia. He did his Doctorate at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.
Mr. Raekallio has performed complete cycles of the piano sonatas of Beethoven, Scriabin, and Prokofiev, as well as altogether 62 piano concertos. He has made about 20 CDs, including an acclaimed set of the Prokofiev Sonatas.
Many of his students have made big international careers as pianists, notably Igor Levit, Tony Siqi Yun and Antti Siirala. From Mr. Raekallio’s studio have also emerged, along with several first prizewinners in major international competitions, about 30 professors in Europe, Asia and America. He regularly serves as a juror and gives master classes in the USA, Europe and Asia.
In 2022 Mr. Raekallio retired from his faculty positions at Juilliard and at the Sibelius Academy. Currently he lives in Helsinki, doing selective free lance work as teacher, adjudicator, and pianist.