The Manhattan Beat: 31st Annual Tibet House US Benefit Concert at Carnegie Hall

Columbia University professor Robert Thurman, actor Richard Gere and composer Philip Glass founded the Tibet House US Cultural Center of H. H. the Dalai Lama in New York City in 1987 at the behest of the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso. Tibet House US' purpose is to present Tibet's ancient traditions of art and culture, preserve and restore Tibet's cultural and spiritual heritage, and share Tibet's systems of spiritual philosophy and mind sciences. Each year, Glass hosts and curates a benefit concert for the non-profit Tibet House US at Carnegie Hall. Carly Simon, Patti Smith, St. Paul & the Broken Bones, Angel Olsen, and Blood Orange were among the popular artists who joined Glass onstage on March 3, 2018.

Thurman welcomed his benefactors from the stage, and the two-and-a-half-hour program began with a line of chanting monks. Glass then introduced Los Vega, an acoustic ensemble that he said he discovered when it played traditional Mexican music outside his apartment building. Dev Hynes then shed his Blood Orange persona to sit at a Steinway piano and perform Nina Simone’s "Nobody’s Fault But Mine" and Glass' instrumental "Etude #6." Angel Olsen performed solo and then accompanied by the Patti Smith Band. Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields was accompanied by Sam Davol and for his final song by the Scorchio Quartet. Patti Smith performed two songs, and also injected commentary applauding the students who are taking a stand against guns and condemning the proposed move of the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. St. Paul & the Broken Bones rocked passionately, with vocalist Paul Janeway taking off a glittery shoe, smacking it on the Carnegie stage and then tossing it across the stage. Tibetan freedom folk singer Techung performed, then Glass with Mick Rossi and the Scorchio Quartet, and Ben Taylor (son of James Taylor and Carly Simon) with Sophie Hiller and the Patti Smith Band. The all-female Resistance Revival Chorus, born out of the Women's March on Washington, sang as the singers marched down the aisles from the back of the hall and onto the stage. The chorus then backed Carly Simon on her Oscar, Golden Globe and Grammy award-winning "Let The River Run," which Simon dedicated to the undocumented immigrants known as the Dreamers. Towards the end of the song, Simon and the chorus were joined on stage by most of the evening's artists to close the evening's finale. Anyone who purchased a ticket hoping to hear Simon must have been disappointed, however; she sang only one song and her singing was inaudible.

All photographs are by Getty Photography.