Sebastian Issler, a distinguished Swiss pianist and the inaugural pianist-in-residence at the City Music Foundation in London, won the Jean Meikle Prize for Best Duo with soprano Anna Cavaliero at the 2022 Wigmore Hall/Bollinger International Song Competition and the Paul Hamburger Prize for Lieder – awarded by Graham Johnson – in the same year. Chosen by the audience, he won the Armitage Prize together with soprano Caroline Taylor at the 2025 New Voices Singing Competition at The Northern Aldborough Festival. Twice a finalist at the International Schubert Competition in Dortmund, among others, Issler has also won several prizes at the Swiss Youth Music Competition.

 Together with his duo partners, Issler has performed at major venues such as Wigmore Hall, St Martin-in-the-Fields, Wiltshire Music Centre, Laidlaw Music Centre, Milton Court Concert Hall, Barts Heritage Great Hall, and Tonhalle Zurich, Konzerthaus Dortmund, Abbey Library of Saint Gall, as well as at leading festivals such as Origen Festival Cultural, International Lied Festival Zeist, LIEDBasel Festival and Liedrezital Zurich. He also regularly performs as a soloist and is known for his collaboration in masterclasses with renowned figures such as Brigitte Fassbaender and Thomas Hampson.

 In 2021, he undertook to record his signature programme 'The World of Song' in the esteemed confines of the Schubertiade Hall for the Montreux Jazz Festival China. 'The World of Song' was premiered in an immersive 360 Reality Audio Cinema at the Festival in Hangzhou, China, to great acclaim.

 Trained at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London, he completed his Artist Diploma as a Guildhall Scholar with Julius Drake and was a member of Graham Johnson's Song Guild. Issler holds two master's degrees with distinction from the Zurich University of the Arts, where he studied with Eckart Heiligers and Christoph Berner. His style and pedagogy have been significantly influenced by his studies with Edna Golandsky, Robert Durso, and John Bloomfield at the Golandsky Institute in New York, where he was certified by the Board of Directors and became the first certified teacher of the Taubman Approach in Switzerland.

 Issler is a member of the faculty at the Golandsky Institute in New York and at the Kantonsschule Hohe Promenade in Zurich. He has served as a fellow at the Guildhall School, a lecturer at the Zurich University of the Arts, and a teacher for piano accompaniment at the Zurich University of Teacher Education. He is supported by scholarships from the Guildhall School, the Golandsky Institute, Arosa Kultur, and LIEDBasel. Based in Zurich, he is passionate about sharing his knowledge with students around the world, both in person and online.