John White (b. 1931, Rochester, Minnesota)

John White's published compositions include many vocal works, but he has also written symphonic works for major U.S. orchestras that have been performed by the Cleveland Orchestra, the Rochester Philharmonic, the Atlanta Symphony, the Eastman Wind Ensemble, and numerous other university and community ensembles. He is the author of several scholarly books on music. His primary composition teachers were Howard Hanson and Bernard Rogers, and he also studied with Nadia Boulanger and Ross Lee Finney. White has a Ph.D. from the Eastman School of Music.

In 2003-2004 White held the Fulbright-University of Vienna Distinguished Chair in Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Vienna in Austria, where he shared his expertise in Nordic music with the University's Scandinavian Studies Department. In 1996 he held a Senior Fulbright Research Fellowship in Reykjavik, Iceland, where he studied the music of living Icelandic composers. Before his retirement, White taught music at the university level for half a century.
.