Raekallio studied in Helsinki, Vienna with Dieter Weber [de], London with Maria Curcio and Saint Petersburg.
[4] A professor at the Swedish Royal College of Music (1994–1995), Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover (2005–2010, 2014–) and the Sibelius Academy (1998–2008), Raekallio trained Antti Siirala and Gergely Boganyi at the latter.
He is a scholar on piano playing technique and a former member of the Research Committee on Culture and Society of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters.
In 2014, he decided to leave the Juilliard School and started to teach at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover again.
[9] Raekallio was a jury member of the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in Tel Aviv[3] and also in Shanghai, Vienna, Budapest and Tokyo.