Events

“Her music is timeless,” Summer’s nephew Robert Grant said.

This year’s Donna Summer disco party is planned for Friday evening at City Hall Plaza, with the plaza set to be transformed into a dance floor where the public is invited to enjoy Summer’s greatest hits. 

From 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday, Mayor Michelle Wu and the Office of Tourism, Sports, and Entertainment welcomes the public to the 12th Annual Donna Summer Disco Party. DJ Vince1 will be there playing Summer’s classics, the office said in a press release. 

The free event at City Hall Plaza will be filled with glow sticks, bubbles, colorful lights, a disco ball, and roller skating, in celebration of 50 years since Summer’s first Top 10 hit. 

Summers, a Mission Hill native, rose to global stardom as a singer and songwriter in the 1970’s disco era, being dubbed the “Queen of Disco” by fans. Summer was crowned most iconic Boston artist by thousands of Boston.com readers in a 2024 reader poll. 

While Summers died of lung cancer in 2012, her legacy lives on in this annual Boston tradition. The disco party is planned alongside Summer’s nephew Robert Grant, a hip-hop artist. 

The City of Boston helped Grant spearhead the first event in 2014 after Grant raised money to fund a mural of Summer at Jeremiah E. Burke High School. 

Summers attended the school in Dorchester before dropping out in 1967 to pursue her music career. She later received an honorary diploma from the school. 

“Her music is timeless,” Grant said. “I’m pretty excited about what I created. This all stems from me raising money to build a mural where she went to high school at, and then just seeing the snowball effect, it’s almost surreal.” 

DJ Vince1, a long-time friend of Grant’s, got involved with the annual disco parties in 2018. 

“[DJ Vince1] has been my friend for over 20 years, and he’s a huge Donna Summers fan, so that’s a plus,” Grant said. “Initially, I had a couple of DJs do it the first couple of years, but I wanted someone who was gonna do the event justice. So, I came and grabbed him and he’s been doing an awesome job ever since.”

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