LUKE FOX, Trumpet
Justine LeBaron Young Artist Competition Winner 2018
MIRANDA ISBITTS, Violin
Justine LeBaron Young Artist Competition Winner 2018
THE FLORIDA ORCHESTRA | 2018-2019 55
Luke Fox has been
playing trumpet
since the fourth
grade. What started
as just something to
do after school became
an absorbing
pursuit, and in middle
and high school,
he played in All-
County and All-State
bands, church music
groups, and his school music bands.
He studied music theory in the Largo High School
International Baccalaureate program with Christopher
Benoit. As a member of the Pinellas Youth
Symphony, he worked with conductor Susan Robinson
as well as brass quintet coach and Florida Orchestra
horn player Carolyn Wahl.
In the summer of 2016, he participated in the Tanglewood
Young Artists’ Wind Ensemble and the
Trumpet Workshop, studying with Terry Everson.
He studied for six years with Robert Smith, Principal
Trumpet of The Florida Orchestra.
Currently Fox is a freshman at the Eastman School
of Music (University of Rochester) in New York, in
the trumpet studio of James Thompson.
Born in Pinellas
County, Miranda
Isbitts began playing
violin at age
five with teacher
Diane Volpe at Creative
Keys studio in
Dunedin. She later
studied with Luba
Geyer and has been
a student of Lauren
Murphy in Tampa
for the past two and a half years. In 2018, Isbitts
was taught privately by world renowned
instructor Mimi Zweig at the Indiana University
Summer String Academy, where she was
seated as concertmaster of the camp orchestra.
During previous summers, Isbitts was principal
second violin of the Manhattan School
of Music senior camp orchestra and participated
in chamber music camps in Jacksonville
and at the University of Tampa.
Prior to being a grand prize winner in the 2018 Justine
LeBaron Young Artists Competition, presented
by The Florida Orchestra Musicians Association,
Isbitts was a second-place winner in the contest’s
junior division in 2017, when she also entered as
pianist.
Isbitts attends seventh grade at Clearwater Fundamental
Middle School and is a three-year member
of the Pinellas Youth Symphony and Serenade
Strings ensemble. She also plays cello in her middle
school orchestra. In 2017 and 2018, she was a member
of the Perlman Music Program SuperStrings ensemble
led by Itzhak Perlman in Sarasota.
Isbitts performs on an original Gand and Bernadel
violin generously on loan from The Friedman Family
of Bradenton.