When I was told that he had played I burst out crying and made such a fuss that my mother had to hustle me out of the concert and I went home in disgrace.

He attended Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the alma mater of his parents, from 1896 until 1901 where he studied with Frederick Doolittle, Cook's former violin teacher.

[2] White left in 1901 before graduating to accept a teaching position in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania that fell through after one month.

[5][6][7] As a concert violinist he received critical praise and toured the United States with his wife, pianist Beatrice Warrick White.

[8] From 1924 to 1930, he taught at West Virginia State College and succeeded R. Nathaniel Dett as head of the music department of Hampton Institute from 1932 until 1935).

[9][10] In this period he wrote his best-known works: the ballet, A Night in Sans Souci—from the play Tambour, and the opera Ouanga.

[13] White's compositions contained a similar aesthetic to contemporaries and mentors such as William Grant Still, Florence Price, R. Nathaniel Dett, and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.

White drew upon thematic and harmonic content from African-American and other African diasporic musical styles and traditions.