The music was everything to Ed,” says Janice Toliver of her brother, bass-baritone Edward Russell White, Jr. “If music was involved, he wanted to be in the middle of it.” White, who performed under the name Edward Russell, died in Cleveland on November 29, 1998. He was 46 years old.
Music was in White’s blood. Raised in East Orange, New Jersey, he sang in church and school choirs and played in his high school band. In 1977, he graduated with a B.A. in music/vocal pedagogy and a minor in piano from Hartt College of Music, at the University of Hartford in Connecticut.
White’s singing earned critical acclaim and took him all over the world. His professional debut, in 1988, was in a National Public Radio broadcast of Rimsky-Korsakov’s ballet Mlada, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. A year later he made his London Symphony Orchestra debut in the same work. White’s Met debut, as the Undertaker in the 1989-90 production of Porgy and Bess, took place under the baton of James Levine. An extensive list of credits includes leading roles with Cleveland Opera, Washington Opera, Nice Opera, Austin Lyric Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Arizona Opera, Netherlands VARA Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Festival de Musique Sacree. At the time of his death, White was engaged for performances with Dallas Opera, Hawaii Opera, Hamilton Opera, Austin Lyric Opera, and Opera Theatre of St. Louis.
Edward Russell White is survived by his children, Rayna Marie Dyton-White and Edward R. White III, his mother Bertha F. White, his sisters Dr. Marilyn M. White and Janice W. Toliver, and his brother-in-law Ronald L. Toliver, as well as numerous aunts, uncles, cousins, students, and friends.
