The wife and business partner of jazz impresario George Wein died of cancer Monday at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center in Manhattan, family spokeswoman Sue Auclair said in a statement.
A 1948 graduate of Simmons College at the age of 19, she started her career as a biochemist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and later worked in New York at Columbia Medical School.
She married George Wein, the founder of the Newport Jazz Festival, in 1959. After her marriage, she gave up her career in biochemistry and became a key adviser to Wein, helping him organize 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, she and her husband joined and Pete and Toshi Seeger in founding the Newport Folk Festival, which is credited with helping to fuel the 1960s folk revival.
She also was a founder of the New York Coalition of 100 Black Women and participated in several scholarship programs and numerous other charitable endeavors.
Funeral services were scheduled for Friday.
-- Associated Press
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