Swiss Pianist Sebastian Issler received the Jean Meikle Prize for best Duo at the 2022 Wigmore Hall/Bollinger International Song Competition, together with British-Hungarian soprano Anna Cavaliero. He is the winner of the 2022 Paul Hamburger Prize for Lieder, finalist of several international competitions, including the International Schubert Competition Dortmund, and multiple prize winner of the Swiss Youth Music Competition.

 

Sebastian is the first pianist-in-residence at the City Music Foundation in London, which also acts as his management.

 

With his duo partners, Sebastian has performed at Milton Court Concert Hall, International Lied Festival Zeist, LIEDBasel Festival, Origen Festival Cultural, Abbey Library of Saint Gall, Tonhalle Zurich, and Wigmore Hall among others. He also appears regularly as an accompanist in masterclasses with luminaries such as Brigitte Fassbaender and Thomas Hampson, and recently as a soloist with the Collegium Vocale Lenzburg in Switzerland.

 

In 2021, he recorded his unique programme ‘The World of Song’ for the Montreux Jazz Festival China at the Schubertiade Hall. ‘The World of Song’ was first broadcast in an immersive cinema in 360 Reality Audio at the festival in Hangzhou, China.

 

He is a graduate of the Zurich University of the Arts, where he completed two Masters degrees, both with distinction. Currently, he is completing his Artist Diploma as a Guildhall Scholar at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London, where he is working with Julius Drake and is a member of Graham Johnson's Song Guild. Sebastian is a scholarship holder of Arosa Kultur and LIEDBasel. Sebastian is influenced greatly by working with Robert Durso at the Golandsky Institute in New York which significantly changed his own playing and teaching style.

 

Sebastian is a guest lecturer at the Zurich University of the Arts and enjoys teaching, specialising in the Taubman Approach.