osmo tapio räihälä

In the Finnish music circles, composer Osmo Tapio Räihälä is known to play out of the box. Mostly autodidact as a composer, he steers clear of the academic attitude around avant-garde music. After trying out stylistically varied methods in his early works, Räihälä has concentrated on fluently progressing musical processes, with influences from impressionism, free atonality and even some progressive rock, spiced up with some use of electronics and micro-tonal harmonies.

Räihälä gets inspiration from various sources: his breakthrough work Barlinnie Nine (1999/2005) for symphony orchestra is a tribute to the Scottish footballer Duncan Ferguson, and some of his works contain brief quotations from rock and jazz music. Above all he is inspired by visual arts: Räihälä is a synesthete, to him music is a form of visual arts. This is demonstrated in many of his compositions.

Räihälä’s oeuvre includes mostly instrumental music. Chamber music (with or without electronics) forms a major part of his output, but his orchestral works and concertos (for mallet instruments, the viola, the cello, the oboe and the French horn) are an important part of his compositions.

More info: www.raihala.com