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. 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, 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. His style and pedagogy have been significantly influenced by his studies with Robert Durso and Edna Golandsky at the Golandsky Institute in New York, where he was certified by the Board of Directors and became a member of the faculty as the first certified teacher of the Taubman Approach in Switzerland.
Issler is currently a fellow and lecturer at the Guildhall School, teaches piano accompaniment at the Zurich University of Teacher Education and is a guest lecturer at the Zurich University of the Arts. He is supported by scholarships from Arosa Kultur, LIEDBasel and the Golandsky Institute. Based in Zurich, he is passionate about imparting knowledge to students around the world through both face-to-face and online platforms.
British lyric coloratura soprano Caroline Taylor graduated from the Royal Northern College of Music with Distinction, where she won the Joyce and Michael Kennedy Strauss Award. A keen performer of Czech repertoire, she won the 2021 Emmy Destinn Award for Czech Opera and Song and the 2023 Off West End Opera Performance Award with Hampstead Garden Opera for Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen, in which she played the title role. She is a City Music Foundation Artist and a Making Music Recommended Artist for 2024-2026.
Praised for her “glittering soprano” (The Times), Caroline’s upcoming season includes Fauré’s Requiem and Poulenc’s Gloria at the Caird Hall (St Andrews Chorus), Mozart’s Requiem at the Oxford International Song Festival, Vaughan Williams’ Dona nobis pacem with Petersfield Choral Society and the Bath Minerva Choir at Bath Abbey and a European recital tour with duo partner Sebastian Issler. Highlights of 2023/2024 included Caroline’s recital debut at the Royal Opera House accompanied by Fran Hills, Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri (Peri) at the Caird Hall and a solo recital with acclaimed collaborative pianist Roger Vignoles at Goldsmiths’ Hall, London.
Caroline’s opera credits include La Musica/L’Orfeo (Longborough Festival Opera), Adina/The Elixir of Love (Duchy Opera), Lauretta/Gianni Schicchi (RNCM Opera), Helena/The Enchanted Island (British Youth Opera), Governess/The Turn of the Screw (Byre Opera) and Kate/The Yeomen of the Guard (Grange Festival). In 2022, Caroline made her role debut as Asteria in a new English translation of Händel’s Tamerlano with Cambridge Handel Opera, later jumping in to sing the role in the original Italian at the Grange Festival to considerable acclaim.
Concert highlights include Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater (Northern Chamber Orchestra), Britten’s Les Illuminations(Northern Ballet Sinfonia), Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 at the Bridgewater Hall, broadcast on BBC Radio 3; and solo performances at Wigmore Hall, St James’s Piccadilly, St Martin in the Fields, St John’s Smith Square and the Holywell Music Room, Oxford. Caroline is a former member of the Wigmore Hall French Song Exchange and Oxford International Song Festival Young Artist Programme with duo partner George Ireland.