HomeToHarlem.com: “Clarence Cameron White, Violinist and Classical Composer”

HomeToHarlem.com maintains a home page for “Clarence Cameron White / Violinist and Classical Composer (1879 – 1960)”. The following are excerpts:

“Violinist and classical composer Clarence Cameron White was born in Clarksville, Tenn., and spent his childhood in Oberlin, Ohio, Chattanooga, Tenn., and Washington, D.C. He began studying the violin at the age of eight and wrote his first composition for violin and piano at age fourteen. After graduating from Howard University, White entered the Oberlin Conservatory in 1896 and graduated in 1901.

He continued his studies and performed in Boston, New Haven, and New York where he drew the attention of Paul Laurence Dunbar, Harry T. Burleigh, and Booker T. Washington. In 1903 he was invited to join the Washington [D.C.] Conservatory, and he also later taught in public schools there. In the following year he met African-British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor with whom he studied in London in 1906 and again in 1908-11. After performing throughout Europe he established a studio in Boston where he conducted the Victoria Concert Orchestra from 1914 until 1924.”

“Strongly influenced by folk music, White composed violin and orchestral work, and arranged African-American spirituals. Notable are his Symphony in D Minor, an orchestral piece entitled Elegy, the ballet score A Night in Sans Souci, and a cantata, Heritage, which was performed at the Church of the Master shortly before his death.” Full Biography