BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY
C Clarence White
Date:
Tue, 1880-08-10
*The birth of Clarence Cameron White in 1880 is marked on this date. He was an African American violinist and composer.
Born in Clarksville, Tennessee, Clarence Cameron White spent his childhood in Oberlin, Ohio, Chattanooga, Tennessee, 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 studied 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 from 1908 to 1911. After performing throughout Europe he established a studio in Boston where he conducted the Victoria Concert Orchestra from 1914 until 1924. He was also director of music at West Virginia State College from 1924 to 1931. Here he first became interested in Haitian music and history through his friend, Professor John F. Matheus. The two men traveled to Haiti and together composed an opera based on the life of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, a slave who led a revolution and became the first emperor of Haiti.
The opera was titled Ouanga, which means, "Voodoo Charm." The work was performed in Chicago, where it won an award from the American Opera Society of Chicago. The Burleigh Musical Association first produced it for the stage in 1949 in South Bend, Indiana. The opera was also performed in Philadelphia (1950) and in New York at Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera House (1956). After living in Chicago and Elizabeth, New Jersey, where his first wife died, White moved to New York City in 1943, and married his second wife, Pura Belpre.
He was one of the America's most exceptional composers and violinists of the first half of the twentieth century. White played a many of the principal concert halls in the United States and Europe. His tours as a violinist received critical praise. Influenced by folk music, White composed violin and orchestral works, and arranged African-American spirituals. Well-known 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 in 1960.
Date:
Tue, 1880-08-10
*The birth of Clarence Cameron White in 1880 is marked on this date. He was an African American violinist and composer.
Born in Clarksville, Tennessee, Clarence Cameron White spent his childhood in Oberlin, Ohio, Chattanooga, Tennessee, 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 studied 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 from 1908 to 1911. After performing throughout Europe he established a studio in Boston where he conducted the Victoria Concert Orchestra from 1914 until 1924. He was also director of music at West Virginia State College from 1924 to 1931. Here he first became interested in Haitian music and history through his friend, Professor John F. Matheus. The two men traveled to Haiti and together composed an opera based on the life of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, a slave who led a revolution and became the first emperor of Haiti.
The opera was titled Ouanga, which means, "Voodoo Charm." The work was performed in Chicago, where it won an award from the American Opera Society of Chicago. The Burleigh Musical Association first produced it for the stage in 1949 in South Bend, Indiana. The opera was also performed in Philadelphia (1950) and in New York at Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera House (1956). After living in Chicago and Elizabeth, New Jersey, where his first wife died, White moved to New York City in 1943, and married his second wife, Pura Belpre.
He was one of the America's most exceptional composers and violinists of the first half of the twentieth century. White played a many of the principal concert halls in the United States and Europe. His tours as a violinist received critical praise. Influenced by folk music, White composed violin and orchestral works, and arranged African-American spirituals. Well-known 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 in 1960.
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