According to Argote (1953, 83) the violinist was born José Silvestre White y Lafitte in Matanzas, Cuba, on December 31, 1835.  Exhibiting considerable musical talent as a child, he was given his earliest musical training by his father, Don Carlos White, who was an amateur violinist.  Violin lessons continued in Cuba during his adolescent years with José Miguel Roman and Pedro Lecerff(Stevenson 1975, 2), and the young violinist gave his first public concert iin Matanzas on March 21, 1854.  On that occasion he performed a fantasy on themes from Rossini's William Tell  by Osborne and Bériot and two pieces of his own composition, variations on themes from  The Carnival of Venice  and Melodia sobre aires cubanas  (Ramirez 1891, 176; Stevenson 1975, 2).  His accompanist was the famous North American pianist-composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869), who encouraged him to pursue further violin studies in Paris and raised money for him to travel there (Stevenson 1975, 2)

White's earliest association with the city of Paris dates from about 1855, when he was admitted to the Paris Conservatory as a student, following an audition with sixty rival candidates and the unanimous recommendation of his faculty jurors (Trotter [1878] 1986, 225).  At the conservatory he studied violin with Jean-Delphin Alard, the pre-eminent master of the French school of violin playing; harmony, and presumably composition, with composer Henri Reber (1807-1880); and counterpoint and fugue with Ferdinand Taite (Argote 1953, 88).  He was exposed as well to the considerable richness of concert music, virtuoso performers, and influential composer-musicians that this teeming metropolis had to offer a talented young music student in the 1850s.

Thriving in such an enriching, stimulating
environment, José White excelled.  After just one year of study, he won the Paris
Conservatory's highest award in violin, the coveted First Grand Prize.  That competition took place on July 29, 1856, and was reviewed by  Le Pays  on August 5:

"The competition for violin [at the Conservatory] has offered a beautiful spectacle this year, being the most brilliant struggle. The first grand prize was conceded to Mr. White, pupil of Alard, and the second [prize] to Mr. [Aimé] Gros, from the same class... Mr. White showed himself [so] superior that there should have been created a grand exceptional prize in his favor.  He performed with an extraordinary animation, not like a pupil but as a great artist who commands his audience. The jury itself was electrified" (Ramirez 1891, 178).

Although many other details about White's years at the conservatory are fragmentary, there exists evidence that he developed strong ties with members of the musical community in Paris and cultivated friendships that would later serve him well during the 1860s and 1870s when he began to concertize professionally.  We know, for example, of his introduction to the musical circle of Félicien David and his friends through a letter written to the violinist by Giacchino Rossini (J.M.G.Z.1874, 4).

To Mr. White
Sir:
Allow me to express to you all the pleasure that I felt Sunday last at the home of my friend Mr. David.  Your warm execution, feeling, elegance, the brilliance of the school to which you belong, are qualities in an artist like you of which the French school can be proud.

May it be, Sir, [that] with my sympathetic wishes I bring you good fortune by finding in good health the one for whom you fear today.  Accept my blessings. I wish you a happy journey and a safe return.
Giacchino Rossini
Paris, November 28, 1858

The crisis to which Rossini's letter alludes
pertained to a serious illness of the young violinist's father, which necessitated his immediate departure from Paris for Cuba. White apparently remained in Cuba through March 1860 and gave concerts throughout the island during this period.  He returned to Paris shortly thereafter and resumed his studies at the conservatory (Argote 1953, 93-94; Stevenson 1975, 2).

Also during his conservatory years, White participated in four public performances in 1861 that attracted considerable attention from the Parisian press and seemed to mark a turning point in his career; (1) his full-length recital with orchestra at the conservatory during April of that year (J.M.G.Z. 1874, 9); (2) his concert with orchestra at Salle Herz on April 11 (Le Ménestrel April 7, 1861); (3) his collaboration on the concert of pianist A.
Mansour at Salle Pleyel on April 15 (LeMénestrel April 7, 1861); and (4) his performance of a new quintet by C. Estienne on a matinee concert organized during December by pianist Casimir Ney, who would later perform chamber music professionally with White during the late 1860s and early 1870s (Le Ménestrel  December 29, 1861).

Each of White's Six Etudes (1868) is dedicated to a famous violinist: his teacher Alard, Ernesto Camillo Sivori, Henri Vieuxtemps, Henryk Wieniawski, Hubert Leonard, and one Secundino Arango, whose identity has intrigued European and American scholars. Arango, Afro-Cuban, born in Havana at the end of the 18th century and deceased in the same city in the late 1840's, was a violinist, cellist, organist, and composer of both religious music and popular danzones. He was also White's first violin teacher. Fittingly, White's Etude No. 6 is a danzón with a pyrotechnic central section much in the virtuoso Parisian style of the time.”

White appeared twice as guest soloist with the New York Philharmonic under Theodore Thomas during the 1875-1876 season and gave additional concerts in the greater New York area.  He also gave concerts in Boston, Washington, and Philadelphia (Argote 1953, 96).

He returned to Paris during the winter of 1889 and resided there until his death in 1918...

Many of his works still survive today, including a concerto, a string quartet, a collection of studies for violin, and several nationalistic pieces such as  Marcha cubana, and perhaps his most famous composition, the habanera (a Cuban dance in slow duple time)  La Bella
cubana.

La Bella cubane: The bay of Naples  (violin and piano). Paris: Ch. Hayet, 1910. 7pp.  Recorded: Columbia CL-773.

Concerto for violin and orchestra in F-sharp minor. 1864. Bibliothèque Nationale.

Concerto for violin and orchestra in F-sharp minor.  Edited by Paul Glass and Kermit Moore.  Premiere: February 24, 1974; Avery Fisher Hall, New York; Ruggero Ricci, violin; Symphony of the New World; Kermit Moore, conductor. Recorded: Columbia M-33432 (Aaron Rosand, violin; London Symphony Orchestra; Paul Freeman, conductor). Library: Library of Congress.

Hélas: Valse lente. Paris: Durdilly, 1907.  Library: Bibliothèque Nationale.

Marcha cubana (piano). 1909.  Dedication:  Ignacio Cervantes.

Six grandes études, op. 13 (violin, unaccompanied).  Paris: Schonenberger, 1869.  Library: Bibliothèque Nationale.