Willard White was born in Kingston, Jamaica where he commenced his musical training at the Jamaican School of Music and the went on to the Juilliard School in New York.

Since making his debut with the New York City Opera he has sung in the Opera Houses of San Francisco, London both the Royal Opera, Covent Garden and English National Opera, Munich, Amsterdam, Geneva, Hamburg, Madrid, Paris, Los Angeles, Brussels, and at the Glyndebourne, Aix en Provence and Salzburg Festivals. His performances include Golaud in Pellas and Mlisande in Amsterdam and San Francisco, Khovanschina in Brussels, Faust at the Bastille, Nick Shadow in the Peter Sellars productions of the The Rakes Progress and Oedipus Rex at the Chatelet, Mephistopheles in David Aldens production of La Damnation de Faust, the title-role in Stein Winges production of The Flying Dutchman for English National Opera, Nekrotzar Le Grand Macabre at the Salzburg Festival and at the Chatelet in Paris, the title-role Boris Godunov for Welsh National Opera, Nick Shadow at the Netherlands Opera and Parsifal at the Bastille. Last season his appearances included La Damnation de Faust at the Salzburg Festival and in concert performances with the Cleveland Orchestra and the Orchestre de Paris under Christoph von Dohnanyi; Alceste for Netherlands Opera; Pelleas et Mlisande at the Metropolitan Opera, New York; Shostakovich Symphony No. 14 with the Swedish National Radio Symphony Orchestra and The Makropulos Case at the Aix en Provence Festival. He appeared as the soloist at the Last Night of the Proms in 1999 and in the opening ceremony of the Millennium Dome in London.

Willard White's large repetorie includes the bass-baritone roles in operas by Monteverdi, Handel, Mozart, Rossini, Verdi, Puccini, Wagner, Debussy, Shostakovich, Mussorgsky, Prokofiev and Gershwin. His regular concert appearances include working with London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic, Concertgebouw Orchestra, La Scala Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic and Cleveland Orchestras and he is much in demand as a recitalist. He has recently had a huge success with a tribute recital to the legendary singer Paul Robeson at the Salisbury Festival, a concert that he repeated as a part of the London Jazz Festival and at the Belfast Festival at Queens. He will also perform the programme at the Bermuda, Aldeburgh, Harrogate and Chichester Festivals. Willard White also gives concerts in a specially-arranged programme with saxophonist John Harle.