He’s the maverick classical composer whose influence can be heard in
a new generation of decidedly nonclassical artists, from Sufjan Stevens
to LCD Soundsystem. And he’s now the subject of a ten-CD box set.
Here’s how Philip Glass made repetition so hip it sometimes hurts.

t’s a brisk night in February, and Carnegie Hall’s stage is crammed with a typical rock-benefit finale, everyone gathered to roast an old chestnut. The song is the Kinks’ garage classic “All Day and All of the Night,” and rocking out alongside the song’s dad, Ray Davies, are Patti Smith, Michael Stipe, Tom Verlaine, Sufjan Stevens, Band of Horses, and a gang of bopping, saffron-robed Tibetan monks. To

Davies’ immediate left is a scholarly-looking guy, dressed in black with little round wire-rimmed glasses, who shouts along to the chorus.

A week later, Philip Glass—the scholarly-looking guy—walks into a studio at Dunvagen Music, his Lower Manhattan production facility. His young

staff buzzes around him, and his heavy-lidded eyes widen in thanks when an associate brings him coffee. After a sip, he puts down his mug, whips out an iPhone, and with a few expert strokes, calls up a shaky You Tube video of the aforementioned performance.

“He’s the grand maestro of rock’n’roll,” Glass says of Davies, pointing to the ant-size figure on the screen. “He actually put his arm around me and we sang it together!”

Glass, who turned 71 this year, is hardly your average fanboy. For one, he put together this benefit for Tibet House (the cultural organization he founded with Richard Gere and Columbia professor Robert Thurman, Uma’s dad), a concert series he’s hosted

BY WILL HERMES PHOTOGRAPH BY ISABEL ASHA PENZLIEN