Mostly autodidact as a composer, Osmo Tapio Räihälä studied for a couple of years under Harri Vuori during the early 1990’s. In the meantime he took BA in musicology, acquiring the knowledge and ability to work as a music journalist, producer and orchestra manager besides his compositional work. In Finland, he is a well-known voice and a face in the classical music programmes on the radio and the TV.

Räihälä’s early works are stylistically varied, applying multiphonics and microtonality as well as graphic notation, but he has later abandoned these and concentrated on fluently progressing musical processes, with influences from progressive rock as well as from impressionism. Some of his works are inspired by the Liverpudlian football team Everton. Räihälä’s postmodern style often contains quotations from popular music, including prog rock acts like Gentle Giant, Yes and Rush, as well as John Coltrane. Räihälä’s music is definitely atonal, but due to his rich use of whole step scales there is always a feel of consonance. In some of his works there is also some theatrical elements.

Räihälä’s oeuvre includes almost exclusively instrumental music. Most works are chamber music, but his orchestral works and concertos (for mallet instruments, the viola and the cello) form an important line in his output as well.