Violinist Ariel Pawlik-Zwiebel, 19, grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and moved recently to Los Angeles to study at UCLA.

Ariel performs regularly as a recitalist with his father, pianist Markus Pawlik.  Recent concerts include a performance in the Musikalisher Sommer Ostfriesland Festival in Northern Germany, Piano Salon Christophori in Berlin, a co-production of the San Francisco International Piano Festival with Noontime Concerts at Old St. Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco and other recitals in Geneva, Bremen, Phoenix, Berkeley, San Rafael, Pleasanton, Walnut Creek, Portola Valley and more. In the summers of 2025 and 2026, the duo performed on tours in Western Europe.

As a soloist, Ariel has performed with the Livermore-Amador Symphony, the Prometheus Orchestra and the YPSO Orchestra. He has also performed solo pieces recently with the Contra Costa Performing Arts Society, the Hillsdale Club Concert Series in Berkeley, the Junior Bach Festival, the Peninsula Holocaust Memorial Commemoration and more. As a participant in the Sommerakademie of the Salzburg Mozarteum, he was selected to perform at Schloss Hoch in Austria.

An avid chamber musician, Ariel participated in the Music@Menlo Festival Young Performers Program in summer 2025 and participated in the Bowdoin International Music Festival in the summers of 2023 and 2024.  He was a member of the Young Chamber Musicians program in Kohl Mansion and performed as the first violinist in a YPSO quartet and a sextet performing concerts in Berkeley and in the Metropolitan Theatre in Tokyo. 

Ariel is currently concertmaster of the UCLA Symphony. He toured Japan as concertmaster of the YPSO Orchestra in 2023 and was selected to be the concertmaster of the Festival Orchestra at the Bay Area Youth Orchestra Festival (BAYOF) in Davies Hall in January 2024.  He has also performed in the professional California Chamber Orchestra with the San Francisco Choral Society.

Recently rewarded an “Emerging Artist Grant” from the Berkeley Piano Club, Ariel has won top prizes in many US competitions including the Pacific Musical Society Competition, the Khuner Competition, the Livermore-Amador Concerto Competition, the Berkeley Etude Club Competition and many others and was a laureate of the international Grumiaux Competition in Belgium.  He has also run a student concert series.

The grandson of a Holocaust survivor, Ariel finds it meaningful to perform programs reflecting his diverse Jewish, German, American and Eastern European backgrounds.