Biography
"Elad Navon is a superb artist with a velvety tone and a stylistic understanding that belies his youth." (Gramophone)
Israeli clarinetist Elad Navon has established himself as one of the most promising young voices in Israel, actively performing across Europe and the United States.
Recent First Prize winner of the ARD International Clarinet Competition in Munich, he achieved a rare distinction by winning all three top prizes, including the Audience Prize and the Special Prize for the Interpretation of the Commissioned Composition, along with five special awards. Elad is also a prize winner at the Vandoren Emerging Artist Competition, the Aviv Competitions and the Kfar-Saba Winds Competition, and was awarded the Laureate Prize by the Young Concert Artists management in New York.
Since 2017, he has been a continuous recipient of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation Excellence Scholarship.
Navon has performed as a soloist with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, Badische Philharmonie Pforzheim, Collegium Musicum Basel, the Colburn Orchestra and the Haifa Symphony Orchestra. In 2026, Elad will be giving recitals in Italy, France, Germany and the USA, and will participate in leading festivals in Germany, including the Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele and the Spannungen Festival. In May, he will join recent prizewinners of the ARD Competition for a chamber concert tour in southern Germany.
As an orchestral musician, Navon has performed with many of Israel’s leading ensembles, including the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Israel Contemporary Players and the Haifa Symphony Orchestra, as well as with the San Diego Symphony, American Contemporary Ballet and the American Youth Symphony in the United States. His performances have brought him under the baton of eminent conductors such as Sir András Schiff, Zubin Mehta, Lahav Shani, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Vasily Petrenko and others.
Navon is currently pursuing an Artist Diploma at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles with Prof. Yehuda Gilad. After studying with Ilya Shwarts in Jerusalem, Elad earned his B.M. at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music in the studio of Tibi Cziger, followed by an M.M. at the University of Southern California with Prof. Gilad.