A child prodigy, White began her professional career as a soloist in 1901 at the age of eight and graduated from the Institute of Musical Art (which would later become the Juilliard School) in 1907.

Billed as the "only woman solo trumpeter in the world," White toured nationally with her chamber ensembles and performed as a soloist in recitals, vaudeville acts, with concert bands, and with orchestras.

[3] White's first lessons were from her father,[3] and six months after being given her first instrument,[2] she began performing solos at Waltham's Eden Baptist Church.

She was the band's featured soloist at their annual Carnegie Hall concert on May 3, 1901,[4] where she performed a tune from Gioachino Rossini's Stabat Mater[4] and two encores.

[7][11] By 1910[11] (or perhaps earlier[9]), the ensemble had changed its name to the Aida Quartet[11] and Ruth Wolfe had replaced Florence McMillan on trumpet and piano.

[12][13] The Redpath Lyceum Bureau hired the Aida Quartet for their 1910–1911 season,[11] and assigned the baritone soloist C. Pol Plancon to tour with the otherwise all-female ensemble.

[14] The tour, for which White was paid $75 per week, took the quartet across the country to Texas, Iowa, Nevada, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Kansas.

[15] The Aida Quartet was hired again by the Redpath Lyceum Bureau for cross-country tours during the 1911-1912 and 1912–1913 seasons, accompanied by C. Pol Plancon.

Arrangements for brass trio and quartet were interspersed with music for violin, cello, or trumpet with piano, mixed chamber ensemble, and one or two songs sung by Plancon.

[24] When White separated from her husband in 1919 (though their divorce was not officially completed until 1923[29] and she continued to use the name Chandler in her later private life[30]), she reclaimed the rights to the ensemble's name and renamed her newly formed ensemble, the Gloria Trumpeters (which consisted of two trumpets and two trombones, though exact personnel varied through the next decade), the Edna White Quartet.

[34] White formed another brass quartet in 1926 with Claire Wheeler on trumpet and Velma Howell and Betty Barry on trombone which did a 10-week tour for the Redpath Lyceum Bureau under the name the Liberty Belles.

[2] Upon her return, White proposed a new solo act with her as a singer to the Keith-Albee managers; however, they wanted her to play trumpet.

Ultimately, the vaudeville company offered White a contract for a 14-week tour as the leader of a women's big band, where she would direct, sing, and play trumpet.

[41] In addition to her work as a soloist and chamber musician, White toured as a member of the Boston Women's Symphony, conducted by Ethel Leginska, in 1929.

[47] The performance, of Guy Ropartz' Andante et Allegro, arranged for orchestra by Wallington Riegger,[2] was rescheduled for February 7, 1932[47] and was ultimately a success.

[47] In October 1933 White and trombonist Betty Barry opened the Gotham Music School, but only half of the students who registered showed up, and the two women were forced to declare bankruptcy.

White taught cornet lessons to a wealthy woman who supported her financially in the late 1930s[51] and took a position teaching English, music, and drama at a military academy in Freehold, New Jersey from 1938 until around 1941.

[51] On February 19, 1949, White (inspired by her son's suggestion[54]) performed a recital at Carnegie Hall, in collaboration with pianist Conrad Bos and the Tietjien Chorus.

"[56] Of White's performance, the New York Herald Tribune wrote that "There seems nothing that she cannot attain with her instrument, and she looked an impressive figure in her blue velvet, and with a rack of "spare" trumpets beside her, gleaming as golden as her hair.

"[55] The New York Times praised her "musicianly attributes, among them a good sense of pitch and a powerful, brilliant fortissimo tone" but added that "in softer passages she was not always successful at clear articulation.

In an interview in 1990, White described the precarious situation surrounding the recital:"I knew Arthur Judson, the head of booking for the hall…I went to the office and asked him to waive the hall fee and that I would make it up in ticket sales.

"[57] On the program was another performance of Virgil Thomson's "At the Beach," the "Inflammatus" from Rossini's Stabat Mater, "The Carnival of Venice" (with variations by Arban, Clarke, and White herself[2]), Schubert's "Ave Maria,"[57] and unnamed works by John Hartmann and Erno Rapee.

[62] "Despite the long career," The New York Times wrote, "Miss White retains to an impressive degree the fire and dash of the true virtuoso trumpeter.

The four-movement work, written in a Neo-romantic style,[2] was premiered in Greenfield, MA by trumpeter Stephen Schaffner and the Pioneer Valley Symphony on February 9, 1980, and was later recorded by Gaeton Berton with the Maryland Theater Orchestra.

"[6] Like her contemporaries Rafael Mendez and Timofei Dokshitzer, White championed a "violinistic" style of playing that remains popular among trumpet soloists today.

"[2] In 2011, Susan Fleet published Women Who Dared: Trailblazing 20th Century Musicians, a dual biography of White and Maud Powell, a pioneering woman violinist.

[65] Fleet was also responsible for depositing White's papers in the Sibley Library at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York.