Pitt Pendulums host lupus fundraiser

More than a dozen Pitt student music groups will perform in a concert tonight, but the focus… More than a dozen Pitt student music groups will perform in a concert tonight, but the focus will be on a woman flying in from Nashville.

Emily Summers will sing a song she wrote about her late father, who passed away in 2009 after a 10-year battle with lupus. She’s taking part in Pitt’s second annual Voices for a Cure concert, which begins at 8 p.m. in Bellefield Music Hall. The concert is designed to raise money for lupus research and spread awareness about the disease, which attacks the immune system’s healthy cells and tissues, leading to chronic inflammation.

The Pitt Pendulums will host the night of free entertainment, but students are encouraged to donate to the Lupus Center For Excellence, which funds lupus research.

Last year, sophomore Rocky Emidio Paterra approached his a capella group, the Pitt Pendulums, about holding a charity show in memory of his best friend Emily’s father, Jerry Wayne Summers, who died from lupus. And this year they are doing it again.

“I’m especially excited for this time around [because] my best friend Emily is flying up from Nashville to perform in the event,” Paterra said. “[She’ll be] singing the song that she wrote for her father while he was in the hospital before his passing.”

Emily Summers is a songwriting major at Belmont University.

Jerry Summers passed away in February 2009 at the age of 54 after a 10-year battle with the disease. Paterra said he has always been close with the Summers family, who have shown him nothing but love and support throughout their relationship.

“Being able to put on this event for the Summers family is the least I can do to repay them for everything they have done for me in my years knowing them,” he said.

Last year, with a crowd of more than 200 attendees, the event raised nearly $2,000 for the Lupus Center of Excellence of the West Penn Allegheny Health System. The center works toward advancing research of autoimmune diseases and improving the quality of life of those afflicted by them.

Paterra said Summers was a fairly well-known radio broadcaster in Miami and Buffalo, and later in his life became a respected actor in the greater Pittsburgh area. In 2006, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette named Summers the 2006 Suburban Lead Actor of the Year.

Senior Cory Hadden-Leggett, president of the Pitt Pendulums, said in an email that the group offered support for the cause, but Paterra was the real catalyst for the whole event.

“Rocky really organized the show and recruited performers of all types, and the Pendulums provided him with whatever support he needed — sound equipment, room reservations, publicity, etc,” Hadden-Leggett said.

Paterra will be emceeing the show, and the Pendulums, Pitt’s second oldest a capella group, will kick off and end the show. The group will be performing “Forget You” by Cee Lo Green and “Beside You” by Marianas Trench, among other songs.