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(No. 18 of the Black Composers series)  
Clarence Cameron White (1880-1960) was an American composer and violinist who was born in Tennessee. He started studying violin at age 8, and wrote his first composition at age 12. At 16, he enrolled in the Oberlin Conservatory, and got a job teaching at the Washington DC Conservatory shortly after graduating. He made two sojourns to England to study with the conductor and composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. As a violinist, White concertized throughout the U.S. with his wife, Beatrice Warrick White, accompanying him on the piano. Other famous violinists of the day, like Fritz Kreisler and Jascha Heifitz, recorded some of his compositions, but White was best known for his dramatic works. Operas of his were performed in both Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. In 1919, White helped found the National Association of Negro Musicians, the oldest African-American music organization in the country, which is still active today.