38th Annual Tibet House US Benefit Concert Unites Michael Stipe, Patti Smith, Jackson Browne, Allison Russell, Laurie Anderson and Many More at Carnegie Hall (A Gallery + Recap)
Noam Galai and Ilya Savenok for Getty Images, Courtesy of Tibet House US
On Monday, March 3, Tibet House US returned to New York’s Carnegie Hall to present its 38th Annual Benefit Concert. Staging in the hallowed Stern Auditorium, the cultural advocacy organization celebrated the Tibetan Lunar New Year with a spiritual successor to the 616-year tradition of Great Miracle Prayer Festivals, bringing together a litany of high-profile performers spanning genres and generations. These talents–many of them extending longtime relationships with the esteemed event–ushered in the Year of the Wood Snake by enacting the transformation it represents through poetry, revelry and powerful music.
The 2025 Tibet House US Benefit Concert commenced, as always, with a chanted invocation from the Drepung Gomang Monks that sacralized the space through repetition. The Phillip Glass Ensemble followed with “Rubric,” a dense and dazzling composition from 1982’s Glassworks with a chorus of saxophones, keyboards and synthesized choir that circle a short theme, revealing deeper resonances with each pass. Taken together, these parallel opening acts established a theme of contemplative grandeur that resounded throughout the program.
After allowing the music to introduce itself, Tibet House co-founder and scholar Bob Thurman took the stage to deliver opening remarks and thank co-artistic director and THUS Vice President Phillip Glass, who waved from the balcony. Beneath a tapestry of the Potola Palace, Thurman spoke to Tibet’s history of repression, expressed solidarity with the people of Ukraine and set an intention for the evening of “celebrating the beauty of life and looking to the future with hope,” then welcomed Arooj Aftab.
Aftab, joined by upright bass, harp and flute, opened with her solemn and soul-stirring Grammy-nominated Night Reign standout “Rat Ki Rani.” Casting a hush over the auditorium with her mesmerizing vocals, the genre-bending Pakistani-American singer and composer moved seamlessly back to 2021’s Vulture Prince with her Grammy-winning entry “Mohabbat,” which channeled the emotional intensity of her opener into an unfettered and liberatory conclusion.
THUS newcomer Aftab was followed by mainstay Tenzin Choegyal, the Tibetan artist and activist who has brought the sound of the Tibetan nomads to the event for several years. Choegyal welcomed support from the Scorchio Quartet–maintaining a history of more than 20 years with the benefit–and a choir of The YindaYin Children of Tibet. Together, the ensemble described a “beautiful language and culture under attack” and invoked the bodhisattva of compassion with “GangeRi Rawe,” sung in their native tongue to produce one of the show’s most moving moments.
Another yearly tradition was realized with the arrival of Patti Smith, a longtime friend to the organization who elicited a cheer from the crowd. Smith honored her mentor with an impassioned reading of Allen Ginsberg’s “Holy!” footnote to Howl, then turned up a favorite from her five-decade discography with a thematically appropriate performance of 2003’s “Peaceable Kingdom,” backed by her faithful collaborators Tony Shanahan, Rebecca Foon and Jesse Paris Smith.
When Smith stepped offstage, the legendary Laurie Anderson–the benefit’s other longtime co-artistic director–dashed onstage to herald avant-pop forerunners Tune-Yards. For their Tibet House debut, the duo of Merrill Garbus and Nate Brenner served up indie innovation with live premieres of “How Big Is the Rainbow” and “Limelight,” both of which are featured on the new album Better Dreaming announced today. For the former, leftfield sampler meddling was complimented by angular half bows from the Scorchio Quartet, while the latter saw vocal support from the “self-dubbed Yard Birdies,” featuring Anderson, Allison Russell, Ganessa James and the Resistance Revival Chorus’ Abena Koomson-Davis.
This high-energy blast was contrasted by a smoky simmer from country pathbreaker Orville Peck, who summoned the spirits of early Memphis, Tenn. crooners through his smoldering, hypnotic warble on “Dead of Night,” then delivered his first performance of Leonard Cohen’s “Chelsea Hotel #2.” “I’ve always wanted to cover this, and I thought it was a nice night to do it,” he shared. Peck welcomed Russell for the second-ever live treatment of their 2024 duet “Chemical Sunset,” another moody, lonely-hearts barn-burner, then left the Americana icon to assume the spotlight with James and Koomson-Davis for explosive performances “Super Lover” and “Rag Child.”
After a meditative interlude from Ebon Moss-Bachrach, who gave an inspiring reading of Ginsberg’s “Wales Visitation” as the Scorchio Quartet added subtle variations on the theme from Koyaanisqatsi, Anderson took the stage with a reflection on her decades of experience with THUS. Her remembrances flowed naturally into her performance, commencing a cover of Lou Reed’s “Junior Dad,” which joined her emotive violin with a storming hard-rock backing from Sexmob and recorded vocals from her late husband.
Anderson joined Michael Stipe for a collaborative reading of Max Ehrmann’s “Desiderata,” retracing each other’s unmistakable voices to form canons and echoes of time in the 98-year-old poem. This inspiring entry moved seamlessly into a chilling cover of “The Man Who Sold the World” helmed by Stipe with instrumental support from Anderson and Smith’s band and howling vocals from Choegyal. Stipe concluded his portion with a powerful treatment of “No Time for Love Like Now,” co-written by Aaron Dessner and offered in memory of Hal Willner.
Jackson Browne emerged next with the most intimate performance of the evening. Centerstage with only his guitar, the storied singer-songwriter and activist shared a heartfelt call for change with an uplifting solo rendition of “Don’t You Want to Be There,” then added subtle lap steel accompaniment for another striking and hopeful political anthem “Far from the Arms of Hunger.”
As the program wound to its last movement, Afrobeat-jazz fusion firebrand Angélique Kidjo stormed the stage and brought the auditorium to its feet with an infectious sing-along of “Afrika.” With the crowd’s energy brought to new heights, the program packed in one last thrill with a performance from New York-based Ukrainian punk ensemble Gogol Bordello, who dedicated anthemic, roaring renditions of “Solidarity” and “We Mean It, Man” to the people of Tibet and Ukraine and those calling out for freedom all over the world. Finally, in the enduring custom of the Tibet House US Benefit Concert, the evening’s entire cast of artists joined onstage for a revelatory collective statement of Smith’s “People Have the Power.”
Get an inside look at the 38th Annual Tibet House US Benefit Concert in the photo gallery below from Noam Galai and Ilya Savenok for Getty Images, Courtesy of Tibet House US. To learn more about Tibet House and its mission to preserve Tibetan culture and ensure its future, visit thus.org.
