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Joyce Alexander Wein
October 21, 1928 – August 15, 2005
Joyce Wein, wife and business partner of jazz impresario
George Wein, died Monday, August 15, at New York Presbyterian
Hospital following a battle with cancer. She was 76.
Joyce Alexander Wein was born in October 21, 1928, in Boston,
Massachusetts, the sixth of seven children of Columbia and
Hayes Alexander. Her mother was the youngest of thirteen
children, two of whom were born into slavery. Joyce attended
Girls Latin School and at the age of 15, entered Simmons
College, where she graduated with a major in chemistry in
1948 at the age of 19. After graduation, she started her
career as a biochemist at Massachusetts General Hospital
in Boston and later in New York at Columbia Medical School.
In 1959, Joyce Alexander married George Wein, founder of
the Newport Jazz Festival, and gave up her career in biochemistry.
Mr. Wein, an internationally known impresario, leaned heavily
on her advice and partnership in the Newport Opera Festival
and Newport Jazz Festival, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage
Festival, the Hampton Jazz Festival, and the Grande Parade
du Jazz in Nice, France. In 1963, Mrs. Wein joined her husband
and Pete and Toshi Seeger in founding the Newport Folk Festival,
a major engine of the 1960s folk revival; her tireless work
behind the scenes was critical to that event's success.
A founder of the New York Coalition of 100 Black Women,
the forerunner of coalitions around the nation, Mrs. Wein
has been deeply involved with philanthropy and the arts.
She was responsible for establishing the Joyce and George
Wein Professorship Fund in African-American Studies at Boston
University, and recently set up the Alexander Family Endowed
Scholarship Fund at Simmons College. She has served on the
Board of the Studio Museum in Harlem for ten years, and
has partnered with her husband in amassing an important
collection of paintings and drawings by African-American
artists. (The George and Joyce Wein Collection of African-American
Art will be shown at an exhibition at the Boston University
Art Gallery from November 18, 2005 through January 22, 2006.)
For the past ten years, she and her husband have partnered
with Kenneth and Kathryn Chenault, the CEO of American Express
and his wife, to host an annual dinner for Geoffrey Canada
and the Harlem Children’s Zone, raising over $500,000.
In addition to her husband, Mrs. Wein leaves two sisters,
Eugenia Manning of San Francisco, California and Theodora
McLaurin of Hingham, Massachusetts and many nieces, nephews,
great nieces and nephews.
Funeral Services will be held on Friday, August 19, at 11:00
a.m. at Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home, 81st & Madison.
Donations can be made in her name to:
Studio Museum in Harlem, 144 West 125th Street, NY, NY 10027.
