In short
The episode is a 60 Minutes story with two threads. First, it revisits the Cap Arcona: a luxury German cruise liner launched in 1927 that the Nazis converted into a floating concentration camp in 1945. Thousands of prisoners were packed onto the ship at Lübeck Bay; British Typhoon aircraft bombed it on May 3, 1945, killing about 7,000 across the ships and leaving only about 400 survivors from the Cap Arcona.
Key claims
Himmler ordered camp evacuations to prevent prisoners being delivered alive and to remove evidence; the attack was a “fog of war” friendly-fire tragedy despite records warning that prisoners were aboard.
Notable examples
survivor accounts from George Schwab, Manfred Goldberg, and Bruno Neurath Wilson (whose father Willy survived because he didn’t jump into the water). Second, it profiles the Kanneh-Masons: seven sibling classical virtuosos from Nottingham (Connie Masons) raised by Kati Kane and Stuart Mason, trained at the Royal Academy of Music, and featuring Sheku’s 2018 Prince Harry/Meghan performance and chart success.
Guests
Bill Niven (Holocaust historian), Sebastian Cox (retired RAF chief historian), Daniel Long (researcher), and survivors Bruno Neurath Wilson, George Schwab, Manfred Goldberg, plus the Kanneh-Mason siblings and parents.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOThe Cap Arcona: From Luxury to Tragedy
1:36 to 2:11
Exploration of the Cap Arcona's transformation from a luxury cruise liner to a concentration camp.
“Everyone knows the story of the Titanic, the opulent British ocean liner that struck an iceberg and sank.”
Memorializing the Victims
2:11 to 3:26
Discussion of the memorial honoring the victims of the Cap Arcona and the historical context.
“the Cap Arcona was anchored in Lubick Bay in the Baltic Sea when an aerial attack just hours before liberation killed nearly everyone on board.”
Survivor Stories: Bruno Neurath Wilson
3:26 to 4:44
Bruno Neurath Wilson shares his father's harrowing experiences as a prisoner.
“to the victims of the two ships that went down with a loss of some 7 ,000 lives.”
Remembering the Lost: Manfred Goldberg
4:44 to 5:46
Manfred Goldberg recounts his traumatic childhood experiences during the Holocaust.
“transporting well-heeled passengers from Europe to South America in two weeks.”
Tales of Survival Amidst Horror
5:46 to 7:01
Narratives of survival from concentration camps and the loss of family members.
“We were rounded up and sent to the concentration camp, just the three of us, my mother, I, and my younger brother.”
Political Prisoners: Willie Neurath's Resistance
7:01 to 8:14
Willie Neurath's opposition to the Nazis and experiences in concentration camps.
“When they returned to camp one night, they learned the SS had taken Manford's little brother Herman and three other children.”
The Journey to Lubick Bay
8:14 to 11:47
The harrowing journey of prisoners transported to Lubick Bay in overcrowded conditions.
“Schwab was only nine years old when German soldiers invaded his hometown of Liapaya, Latvia.”
Conditions Aboard the Barges
11:47 to 12:41
Describing the terrible conditions prisoners faced aboard the barges headed to the Cap Arcona.
“The barges, each packed with about a thousand prisoners, were towed by tugboat for six days, about 400 miles across the Baltic, to where the Cap Arcona was positioned.”
Desperate Attempts for Survival
12:41 to 14:03
Prisoners' desperate attempts to escape as they reach the shore near the Cap Arcona.
“With nowhere to hold the amassed prisoners, SS guards jammed more than 4 ,000, including Willy Neurath, onto the Cap Arcona.”
Survival and Desperation on the Barge
14:03 to 16:24
Listeners will learn about the harrowing experiences of prisoners as they attempt to escape from a sinking barge.
“It meant jumping into the water and wading through the water to shore.”
Show all 22 chapters
The Cap Arcona Bombing: A Tragic Mistake
17:08 to 23:08
The segment discusses the tragic bombing of the Cap Arcona and its implications for the prisoners aboard.
“Adolf Hitler was dead, German forces were in retreat, and the Third Reich was crumbling.”
Survivors' Stories and Their Legacies
23:09 to 26:49
This section recounts the survival stories of individuals from the Cap Arcona and their lives after the war.
“prisoners were packed together like herrings.”
The Kanneh-Mason Family: A Musical Legacy
26:50 to 28:00
Explore the unique story of the Kanneh-Mason siblings and their impact on classical music.
“It's now tradition on the 3rd of May for families of victims and survivors to sail to the site where the ship was bombed.”
Introducing the Kanneh-Masons
28:00 to 29:29
Learn about the Kanneh-Masons, a talented family of musicians.
“When we first met them last winter, each of the seven was still under age 30, representing the young crossover stars that the ever-graying classical music world so urgently needs.”
The Impact of a Musical Environment
29:30 to 31:05
Explore how the Kanneh-Masons' upbringing fostered their musical talents.
“The Connie Mason siblings have toured the world, recorded chart-topping albums, won prestigious awards.”
Parental Guidance and Pressure
31:06 to 33:39
Discover the balance of support and pressure in nurturing musical talent.
“Yeah, I think that's what we all believe.”
Sunday Concerts and Peer Pressure
33:40 to 34:55
Learn about the siblings' Sunday concerts and their effects on development.
“I think it's a house of children who had a love of music.”
Navigating Fame and Identity
34:56 to 36:14
Understand how the Kanneh-Masons balance their collective success with individual identities.
“If mom and dad weren't typical stage parents, the pressure came instead from one another.”
Sheku's Rise to Stardom
36:15 to 37:55
Follow Sheku Kanneh-Mason's ascent to fame after performing at a royal wedding.
“From there, the invites and accolades, you might say, crescendoed.”
Individual Paths and Competition
37:56 to 39:11
Examine how each sibling has carved their own path while maintaining family bonds.
“All seven still perform as a family from time to time.”
Maintaining Harmony in Music
39:12 to 40:38
Discover how the Kanneh-Masons keep their musical collaboration harmonious.
“So a lot of the time people come up to me and be like, oh, you played so well last night at Carnegie.”
Maintaining Harmony in Music
41:05 to 41:33
Discover how the Kanneh-Masons keep their musical collaboration harmonious.
“Lioness, the hit original series from Taylor Sheridan, is now streaming on Paramount+.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:07Bill Whitaker:The Cap Arcona was once a German version of the Titanic. It had its own tennis court. It had a heating swimming pool. It had the most wonderful restaurant where you could look out onto the sea. The most wonderful first-class cabins. It was a luxury cruise ship. It was a luxury cruise liner. Absolutely was. But during World War II, the Nazis turned the Cap Arcona into a floating concentration camp. Just days before liberation, the ship was bombed, killing thousands on board. Why was it targeted and who sent the warplanes? The answers might surprise you.
0:45This is the setting that produced what is surely the most statistically improbable story in classical music history. Seven siblings, each a virtuoso by almost any definition. They have performed at the world's great concert halls, recorded chart-topping albums, won prestigious awards. Meet the Connie Masons.
1:30I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm John Wertheim. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Leslie Stahl. Those stories tonight on 60 Minutes.
1:47Everyone knows the story of the Titanic, the opulent British ocean liner that struck an
1:52Bill Whitaker:iceberg and sank. But it's likely you have never heard of the Cap Arcona, a German version of the Titanic. Before World War II, the vessel was a cruise ship for the well-to-do. By the end of the war, the Nazis had transformed it into a floating concentration camp. Packed with prisoners, the Cap Arcona was anchored in Lubick Bay in the Baltic Sea when an aerial attack just hours before liberation killed nearly everyone on board. As we first reported in 2024, the ship's improbable journey from luxury liner to deathtrap is one of the most horrific and little-known war stories we have encountered.
2:37Bill Whitaker:On sunlit days, Germany's Baltic coast looks idyllic, but this beauty masks an unthinkable horror, one that's etched in the local memory and on this beachside marker bearing the name Caparcona and the German words for fear, panic, and grief. It's so calm, so peaceful, and yet out there is a graveyard. You can come to a place like this and just feel the weight of the history. British historian Bill Niven has spent much of his career studying the Holocaust. We met him at Lubick Bay, where the memory of the Cap Arcona and a smaller cargo ship bombed on May 3, 1945, still haunts this shore. What is this place?
3:24This is a memorial, an honorary memorial, to the victims of the two ships that went down with a loss of some 7 ,000 lives. It recalls all the nationalities that were victims of the sinking of the ships. There were Americans on the ships. Yes. There were Greeks, there were Italians, and the Jewish people, of course, represented here by the Star of David. Most of the victims were on the Cap Arcona.
3:52Bill Whitaker:Every year on the anniversary of the attack, a somber ceremony is held at this site to remember those who perished and those who suffered. My father was one of the survivors of the sinking of the Cap Arcona. Bruno Neurath Wilson came to honor his father, Willy, a political prisoner held on the Cap Arcona. Only about 400 prisoners survived the attack, including Bruno's father. What's it like for you to be in this place? When we go to the place where the Cap Arcona sank, I try to imagine what happened. I really cannot imagine what happened on the ship. No one could have imagined this end for the Caparcona.
4:39Bill Whitaker:Launched with great fanfare in 1927, the ship became known as the Queen of the Atlantic, transporting well-heeled passengers from Europe to South America in two weeks. What was it like in its heyday? Well, it was one of the most beautiful ships the Germans had. It had its own tennis court. It had a heating swimming pool. It had the most wonderful restaurant where you could look out onto the sea. The most wonderful first-class cabins. It was a luxury cruise ship. It was a luxury cruise liner. Absolutely was. The Cap Arcona traversed the Atlantic dozens of times. But in 1933, Germany underwent a sea change.
5:18Hulk!
5:21Bill Whitaker:Adolf Hitler came to power. In 1939, as German troops invaded Poland, the Nazis commandeered the Caparcona to serve as a floating barracks in the Baltic. Ironically, on one of its last trips before the war, the ocean liner carried some German-Jewish passengers who had bought tickets to safety in South America. But most Jews had no way to escape. We were rounded up and sent to the concentration camp, just the three of us, my mother, I, and my younger brother. Manfred Goldberg was just 11 years old when the Nazis forcibly removed him and other Jews from his hometown of Kassel in central Germany.
6:08The cruel experiences during my young years between 11 and 15, they're firmly lodged clearly in my mind to this day.
6:20Bill Whitaker:He would survive confinement in the Riga-Latvia ghetto and four different concentration camps. We lost our names. Each one of us was given a number instead. In the well-known camp of Auschwitz, people had the number tattooed on their arm. But we had to remember our numbers. My number, incidentally, was 56478. If you forgot it in the camps, you were usually punished for it. So I buried it in my mind so as never to forget it. And I won't as long as I live. In Nazi-held Latvia, Goldberg, his mother Rosa, and other prisoners were forced to repair bombed-out railroad tracks during the day. When they returned to camp one night, they learned the SS had taken Manford's little brother Herman and three other children.
7:12Bill Whitaker:They were never seen again. They just disappeared off the face of the earth. The next morning, both my mother and I had to line up and go to work as though nothing untoward had happened. What did that do to you and your mother? I had grown close to my brother because my mother packed some fairy tale books, stories for small children. And we would lie on the floor side by side and I would read to him because he couldn't read himself. As a result, we were very close to each other. So when he disappeared, I was nearly as heartbroken as my mother at the loss of her little baby, so to speak. He was seven when he went into the camps and nine the day he disappeared.
8:00Bill Whitaker:Goldberg and his mother ended up in the Stutthof camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. Another young boy, George Schwab, was imprisoned there too. The crematoria, burning of bodies all the time, gassing, terrible. Schwab was only nine years old when German soldiers invaded his hometown of Liapaya, Latvia. Schwab's father, a prominent physician, tried to protect other Jews in town. He noticed SS trucks were approaching, and he waved for fellow Jews to disperse. And they arrested him, knocked out one eye, threw him down the cellar, and then killed him. Bruno's father, Willy Neureth, was not Jewish, but he actively opposed the Nazi regime.
8:54My parents belonged to the small minority of German people who fight against the Nazis. They didn't fight with weapons, of course. Fight with their words. Yes, fighting with papers, with printed papers.
9:07Bill Whitaker:Willi was arrested for distributing anti-fascist flyers. They brought them to Buchenwald, and from Buchenwald they brought him to the concentration camp Neungamme by Hamburg. The Neungamme work camp mostly held political prisoners. Inside this massive warehouse, historian Bill Niven told us prisoners like Willie Neurath made bricks. What does it feel like to walk in here? It feels like a factory of death. You can sense what went on in this place. But this was not a death camp. This was a work camp. It's a very, very slim distinction. In the course of this work, they die. They die in droves. Willie Neurath managed to survive.
9:51Bill Whitaker:But as fate would have it, he, Schwab, the Goldbergs, and the Cap Arcona all would end up at Lubick Bay, one of the last Nazi defensive positions. In 1945, as the Allies were closing in, the Cap Arcona, now rusted and battered, was repositioned to Lubick Bay. At the same time, SS Chief Heinrich Himmler ordered the evacuation of concentration camps. Why were they trying to clear these places up? There is an order by Himmler that no prisoner is to be delivered into the hands of the enemy alive. But I think the main concern was to get rid of evidence, because prisoners are evidence. They can talk, they can tell, they can speak to those atrocities that were committed by the Nazis.
10:38So getting rid of the evidence meant getting rid of human beings.
10:42Bill Whitaker:Thousands of prisoners were sent to the Nazi holdout at Ljubik Bay. Willie Neurath was forced north from Neuengamme, about 50 miles. From Stutthof in the east, George Schwab, Manfred Goldberg, and his mother were sent to a nearby town aptly named Hell and put on barges. We had to sit down, spread our legs wide apart so the next person could sit between our legs so that their back was touching our chest. that way they could get the maximum number of people into that confined area of the barge. Four tugs appeared. The crews were SS people. Each one coupled themselves to one of the barges and they towed us out to sea.
11:33We had absolutely no idea what was planned, what was happening. People kept speculating that they would just sink us at sea to get rid of us. What were the conditions? Oh, terrible. Just beyond description. No toilet facilities, hardly any food. You could hardly sit. You can certainly not sleep. Sounds like hell. Hell. Hell on earth. Absolutely.
12:00Bill Whitaker:The barges, each packed with about a thousand prisoners, were towed by tugboat for six days, about 400 miles across the Baltic, to where the Cap Arcona was positioned. The Cap Arcona arrived in Lübeck Bay on April 14, 1945, two weeks before Hitler killed himself and three weeks before the end of the war in Europe. It was anchored out there, about two miles offshore. With its engines barely running and little in the way of food and water, the former Queen of the Atlantic, a playground for the rich and famous, was about to become a floating concentration camp. With nowhere to hold the amassed prisoners, SS guards jammed more than 4 ,000, including Willy Neurath, onto the Cap Arcona.
12:51And one must remember this is a ship that's meant for 1 ,500 people. It's not meant for 4 ,000 to 5 ,000 prisoners. So they were jammed. They were jammed like sardines. Do we know what the Nazis intended to do with the prisoners on the ship?
13:06Bill Whitaker:I think they intended them to die. Prisoners already were dying on the barges, fleeing Stutthof, carrying Schwab and the Goldbergs. You had been without food and water? Very little. Next to nothing. Very little. Once in the bay, the SS guards uncoupled the tugboats, leaving the prisoners adrift. And we were left on the high scenes in the barges alone. They just abandoned you? Abandoned. who were left alone supposedly on minefields. Schwab and Goldberg told us, mixed in with the concentration camp victims, were a few prisoners of war. They had been better fed and better treated, and they seized the opportunity.
13:51They managed to prise loose some very long floorboards and began using these planks of wood as ores. And they rode in that manner into the night. Shortly before dawn, the barge ran aground, and anyone who still had an ounce of strength began clambering onto the top deck. It meant jumping into the water and wading through the water to shore. But there were a proportion of people on board. They were still alive, they were still breathing, but their mind had ceased functioning. They just sat there listlessly awaiting their fate.
14:28Bill Whitaker:Norwegian prisoners on George Schwab's barge took advantage of the wind blowing toward shore. They came and collected the blankets that we had and made sails. And we managed to sail towards land. What was your condition? Terribly weak. Terribly weak. You know, I was a walking skeleton. Like many on board, he was almost too weak to move. But a fellow prisoner, an acquaintance from his hometown named Eula, saw him and demanded he'd get up. Eula sort of dragged me. I begged him, leave me alone. I have no strength left. No, no, no, no, no. With Eula's help, Schwab managed to climb out of the barge.
15:18Bill Whitaker:The Goldbergs got out of theirs, too, only to be intercepted by the SS and German troops on the beach. They, of course, were livid that we had moved the barge and had jumped off. So, in revenge, one part of them clumbered onto the barge and would hear a lot of shooting. Every one of these unfortunate people, who no longer knew what to do to save themselves, were shot because they were just sitting there listlessly. and we felt practically certain that we would be shot next. But instead, they lined us up into a column. We were told that we were going to be shipped to a liner by the name of Caparcona.
16:07And while we stood there, we saw quite a large number of bombers, airplanes, moving overhead.
16:15Bill Whitaker:The Cap Arcona was in the bomber's sights. The war was nearly over, but the prisoner's ordeal was not. That part of the story when we come back.
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17:07Bill Whitaker:At the beginning of May 1945, the war in Europe was all but over. Adolf Hitler was dead, German forces were in retreat, and the Third Reich was crumbling. One of the last Nazi defensive positions was at Lübeck Bay in the Baltic Sea, where German ships fled seeking safe harbor, including the Cap Arcona, a luxury ocean liner commandeered by the Nazis for the war effort. As the Allies closed in, the SS evacuated concentration camps and packed thousands of prisoners on to the Cap Arcona. Around noon on May 3, 1945, 13-year-old George Schwab was ordered to line up to board the ship. But the Caparcona could not come close to shore because it was a large, big ship.
18:01So we were going to be transported to the Caparcona by another ship. I was in the back of the line. I was in no hurry. You purposely got to the back of the line. The back of the line.
18:13Bill Whitaker:He was at a dock near this German naval base where Manfred Goldberg and his mother were lined up to. And it is while we stood there that we witnessed bombers and fighter planes coming along. Could you see any markings on the plane? No, we had no idea what nationality they were. You could see the planes coming in? Oh, we could see the planes, clearly. We could see the bombs dropping. Can you remember what it sounded like? There were some pretty powerful explosions, and there were quite a few. The Cap Arcona was hit. With more than 4 ,000 prisoners on board, the floating concentration camp became a fiery tomb.
18:52Bill Whitaker:In a hard-to-believe turn of events, the attackers were British typhoon fighters like these, part of the Allied forces moving in to finish off the Nazis. The British came to liberate these prisoners. They did, yeah. And ended up killing thousands of them. It's like horror on top of horror. It is, and yet some of them did survive to remember it. Bill Niven is a British historian and scholar of the Holocaust. He told us the mistaken attack on the Cap Arcona and a smaller ship is one of the most wrenching tragedies of the war. The prisoners knew that the war was nearing its end. I think a lot of them probably had hopes that they would survive, and that gave them the strength and the courage to hang on.
19:41Bill Whitaker:At the Cap Arcona Museum in the town of Neustadt by Lubbeck Bay, he described the attack. British typhoons struck in waves. The Cap Arcona was hit around 3 p.m. Do you have any idea how many bombs were dropped on the ship? Some people say 60 or over 60. You can imagine the panic and the horror that broke out when the bombs hit the ship, especially for those concentration camp prisoners who were in the very lower decks of the ship, and they were unable to get up to the top because of the flames. Is this the worst case of friendly fire in the Royal Air Force's history? Quite probably, yeah. Sebastian Cox retired last year as chief historian for Britain's Royal Air Force, the RAF.
20:25Bill Whitaker:He blames the incident on the fog of war. Why was the Cap Arcona targeted? Because the Allies believed that there was going to be an attempt to flee by certain Nazi elements across the Baltic to Norway and essentially continue the war. Did the British military have any idea that concentration camp survivors were on the Cap Arcona? If you mean did the pilots have any idea, absolutely not. But other members of the British military did know. What we learn from the records, that the British were handed two opportunities very close to the 3rd of May in regards to the placement of prisoners on board the ship.
21:12Bill Whitaker:Concentration camp prisoners on those ships. Indeed. Daniel Long wrote his Ph.D. history thesis on the attack on the Cap Arcona. We met him at the British National Archives in London, where he showed us these fragile war documents. This is the only official investigation that was carried out into the tragic sinking of the Cap Arcona. Shortly after the bombing, a British war crimes investigator interviewed the intelligence officer for the squadrons that attacked the Cap Arcona and other ships in the bay. The intelligence officer admitted on two occasions that a message was received on the 2nd of May, 1945, that the ships had been loaded with concentration camp prisoners.
21:56Bill Whitaker:That intelligence came in the day before the attack. Which then leads to suggest that there was ample time to warn the pilots on the planes. That information did not make it to the RAF pilots? That's correct. The report does not say why the intelligence officer failed to inform the pilots, but it did blame RAF personnel for the error and called for further inquiry. The report strongly urged that there be a follow-up investigation. That has never happened, has it? Not to my knowledge. Why not? Attempting to, you know, conduct a detailed investigation would, in many respects, be a little pointless.
22:40What are you going to conclude?
22:41Bill Whitaker:To find out what went wrong, what mistakes were made. We know what happened. The RAF made a mistake. An individual made a very tragic mistake, and we know the consequences. About 7 ,000 prisoners perished when the ships were bombed in the bay. Of the more than 4 ,000 on the Cap Arcona, only about 400 survived. Bill Niven told us several survivors later wrote accounts of the hell they endured at sea.
Read the full transcript
23:19prisoners were packed together like herrings. So they stretched their arms up and they cried out, I want out, I want out. This is really quite terrible to have to read this. The fire suddenly got more and more intensive and this was because the flesh of the prisoners was burning so strongly it made this intensity happen. It's distressing to read. Bruno Neureth Wilson's father, Willie,
23:46Bill Whitaker:a political prisoner, was trapped on the ship when the bombs hit. My father managed to go to the back of the ship where it was not burning, and there he survived because he couldn't swim. He survived because he couldn't swim. He couldn't swim because he did not jump into the water, and prisoners who jumped into the water were shot by the SS. When the British realized their mistake, they dispatched rescuers who plucked Willie Neurath and others from the listing deck of the Cap Arcona, and took them to shore. This is the stretch of beach where your father came ashore? In this front of the beach, yes.
24:24Bill Whitaker:Bruno told us in an improbable twist of fate, his mother Eva, a naval staff assistant, had been transferred to the naval base at Lubick Bay. When she saw the bombing, she was drawn to the beach. She had only one hope, to know where is my husband. Is he still living? And maybe my husband is on the ship. How did they find each other? She came from this direction and she saw a man coming towards her. She didn't recognize the one person she wanted to see. He must have been thin and weak. And dirty from the burning. But he came over to her and called his nickname he had for her, Muppel. What does Muppel mean?
25:08Muppel means something like, I love your round face. she recognized his voice by this one word, mupel. That ship was a graveyard for so many people,
25:21Bill Whitaker:but yet it brought your parents back together. Yeah. I don't know if there are hidden meanings in life, but one meaning can be that I am alive now and can tell about the story. As for George Schwab, he pulled inspiration from the horror. This is a prize for having helped Latvia get into NATO. The native of Latvia moved to New York, earned a Ph.D. in political science, and had an illustrious career as an academic and peace broker. Here I am with King Hussein and Bill Clinton. Dr. Schwab, I think you knew everyone. Somewhat. Manfred Goldberg and his mother settled in London. She passed away in 1961.
26:11Bill Whitaker:Goldberg married, started a business and a family. In 2017, he returned to the Stutthof concentration camp with the then Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. He made it his life mission to share his story. I consider that part of my revenge on the Nazis. They wanted to exterminate us. And here we are, not only having survived, we are now great-grandparents. That's your revenge. My revenge on the Nazis, yes. The Cap Arcona lay half-sunken in Lubick Bay for four years before being dismantled. But the story has lain beneath the surface, little known beyond this Baltic coast. It's now tradition on the 3rd of May for families of victims and survivors to sail to the site where the ship was bombed.
27:08Bill Whitaker:They want the world to remember.
27:16Bill Whitaker:This past November, Manfred Goldberg passed away at the age of 95. Several months earlier, he had returned to Lübeck Bay to commemorate the 80th anniversary of his liberation. He stood on the site where he witnessed the attack on the Cap Arcona and went to a Jewish cemetery to chant a memorial prayer.
27:51Let us make the case that the most successful music conservatory is not in Paris, Vienna, or Berlin, but rather in a house on a tree-lined street in Nottingham, England. It might be an unpretentious structure, but it's there that seven extravagant talents were nourished on a variety of instruments before setting off to perform at the world's great concert halls, often as featured soloists with the world's great orchestras. When we first met them last winter, each of the seven was still under age 30, representing the young crossover stars that the ever-graying classical music world so urgently needs.
28:26Oh, and one other thing. They're all siblings. Presenting the Conne Masons.
28:41It's rare these days to find all seven Connie Mason siblings under one roof. But when they are back in their childhood home in Nottingham, old habits return quickly. Amid the din, it's hard to keep thoughts together, much less keep tempo. Every room spoken for is the siblings practice Bach or Beethoven or Brahms. This was the setting that produced what is surely the most statistically improbable story in classical music history. Seven siblings, each, a virtuoso by almost any definition. Roll call. Geneva, 23. Aminata, 20. Sheku, 26. Braima, 28. Aizeta, 30. Konya, 26. And Ariatu, 17. The Gretel von Trapp, as it were.
29:36The Connie Mason siblings have toured the world, recorded chart-topping albums, won prestigious awards. They perform with each other in every combination.
29:48And as we saw at Carnegie Hall two years ago, the bond between the siblings expresses itself as a kind of musical banter.
30:00We notice when you play together, there really seems to be this unspoken connection, this telepathy. What is it like playing with a sibling versus company you're not related to? Well, because we're so close, I think there's like a speed at the way that we interact.
30:22And I think that kind of unspoken communication is just very quick because of how close we are. Because we would listen to each other playing around the house, so we'd know each other's playing very well. That dynamic helped the Connie Masons build a devoted fan base. I also play a cello. A diverse, young fan base in a genre desperate for a wider audience. The overarching question to this whole story is, how do seven siblings achieve this level of talent and success? Well, I think the environment is so important, and because our environment was so intensely musical and loving and supportive, it was kind of bound to happen in one way or another, as in us feeling like we could achieve what we have achieved on our instruments.
31:11I'm hearing a lot of nurture. More than nature. Yeah, I think that's what we all believe. I think if there were a nature part, it would be having that base level of interest. You can't force a child to like something. There was never a grand plan here, say the parents. Kati Kane, born in Sierra Leone, and Stuart Mason, born in London, had taken music classes in school. But that's it. When they started raising kids, music was just another entry in a packed schedule of after-school activities. They went to cricket down the road, do you remember? Oh gosh, yes. Lots of football, cricket, karate. I've forgotten, yes.
31:48Lots of things. Tennis. Gymnastics. Gymnastics, yes. So I think in the end, what you want to do is fuel your child's creative juices, really. It does not sound as though your children were conceived to have in mind to be musicians. No, no. No, it all happens accidentally, really. The eldest, Izita, started on piano when she was six. She took to it. And as the Connie Mason clan grew, the younger siblings, as younger siblings do, imitated the bigger kids. A glorious chain reaction. As to which instruments they chose, there was healthy competition, perhaps with a dash of Freud thrown in.
32:30Szeko was saying that he took up cello in part because you had the violin and he wanted to play a bigger instrument. Yeah, I think there could have been something about it. And it helps, it's objectively a better instrument, so then... You're going to take that? I think the violin is more popular, there's more repertoire.
32:51It became clear each also had talent. Blazing, abundant talent, which Stewart, an executive in the travel industry, and Cotty, a former English professor, were determined to foster. It was intense. The kids attended local public schools, then practiced three and four hours a day. All seven were selected for the junior program at the renowned Royal Academy of Music in London, Two hours each way every Saturday. Any extra income went directly to instruments and lessons. Cotty says that more than once they nearly defaulted on their mortgage. Some people might hear the story and say, boy, I wonder what kind of pressure that must have been.
33:36This must have been a real hothouse. Was it a hothouse? No, it's not a hothouse. I think it's a house of children who had a love of music. They did work hard. It's an interesting balance, isn't it? Because they told us this is what they wanted to do. So then we had to be honest and say, well, if this is what you want to do, then you have to work hard. Because the reality is, if you want to be successful at anything, you have to go for it. But if they said, music's not for me, I want to be a champion darts player or florist. Great. As the kids grew, the home grew into an informal music school. Every week, they'd all gather for what they called their Sunday concerts.
34:17concerts. Each would play a piece while the others would give notes. Put us in the room. What are those like? Well, the room was the hallway usually. Everyone would be sitting on the stairs, kind of looking down at the space. On the Gladiator Stadium. At the Unleashed Performer. And then we'd take it in turns and perform. Yeah. And it's so scary because you finish performing and then everyone's like, who wants to go first? These were really critical. These were really helpful to your growth as musicians. Yeah, because you have to get used to putting yourself under that pressure. Otherwise, you go on stage, and it's so easy to just crumble under the nerves.
34:56If mom and dad weren't typical stage parents, the pressure came instead from one another. As siblings, they can dispense with the niceties. They remain each other's toughest critics, most demanding coaches. Okay, just those, those, um... I think pressure comes from knowing the standards in the music world. And I suppose that's not a negative pressure, but just a feeling of this is what's required of me. In terms of career strategy, Cotty says the kids have always called the shots. And it's never been about clicks, likes, or commerce. We're the Cotty Masons. In 2015, they agreed to appear on Britain's Got Talent.
35:39Good exposure.
35:45But only if they could include real classical repertoire rather than a pop-heavy set list. You surely could have milked this story and the novelty of seven kids and shopped a reality show. Yes. How did you make these commercial decisions, what to pursue and what not? Because they did not want that. They wanted to be classical musicians and be really good at what they did. They had their convictions. Yes. Yes. Well, here is Sheikou Kanemason. From there, the invites and accolades, you might say, crescendoed. Sheikou won a major British music award and caught the eye of a certain couple in search of a wedding entertainer.
36:29When he performed at the marriage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in 2018, the world heard him play.
36:42And suddenly, Sheku was a bona fide star, the first cellist ever to crack the top ten on the U.K. album charts. Here he is posing for British GQ. Ironic because of all the Connie Masons, Sheku presents as the quietest, perhaps the least comfortable wearing the cloak of celebrity. But get a cello in his hand. Would you mind playing for us? With pleasure. And he transforms.
37:23And draws packed audiences, as we saw in London. The siblings came out to support, as they try to do whenever one of their own takes the stage.
37:36Sheku's performance quivers with intensity.
37:42Yes, that's sweat glistening on this$3 million Venetian cello he has on loan.
37:54That was phenomenal. All seven still perform as a family from time to time. But Konya has pivoted, devoting herself to writing fiction. Aminata tried out acting school, but music tugged her back and she decided to return to conservatory.
38:14Braima branched out too, touring with the dance pop band Clean Bandit before returning to classical. The youngest, Mariatu, plans to go pro.
38:27As to the four current Connie Mason professionals, they are busy recording or performing. This summer, Sheku was down under on tour in Australia. You've come into the public as this unit, as the Conne Masons. How do you balance the collective with also trying to carve out an identity as individuals? I think it's something that probably gets easier as you get older, because you start to just get more confidence and more knowledge about what kind of things you want to be doing. And also musically, I think that gets easier. I mean, we play different instruments, we're different ages, we play different repertoire.
39:07Though there are, well, some strings attached. Out of all the sisters, we look the most similar. So a lot of the time people come up to me and be like, oh, you played so well last night at Carnegie. And I was like, that wasn't me. So we tried to do like, did it happen to you? A few days ago. This is the first time this has ever happened. No, I saw you on TV this morning. I said, no, you didn't. I was asleep. They confess. They remain fiercely competitive when, say, apportioning dinner or playing board games. Me too. No! So we wondered about competition in their careers. You should be inspired by those around you, and if someone is doing something that you're not able to, I think you should feel that encouragement and inspiration to want to do that.
39:49But I think as soon as that comparison starts to become about the external things, like, oh, you're doing this concert, then I think everything can... just crumble very quickly. Yeah, and I think that kind of rivalry, if you feeling good about yourself as a musician, is based on, ah, ha-ha, you didn't get this concert and I did. I think that's a very weak pace. So you'll joke about who got the biggest piece of pizza, but you guys draw a line that's not going to contaminate our music. We draw the line at music because our instruments are such an integral part of ourselves, and it would be like deeply attacking the other person.
40:28Yet another way the Connie Masons maintain harmony. An orchestra greater than the sum of its parts. This most remarkable of septets.
40:57For a look at how 60 Minutes reports its stories.
41:00Bill Whitaker:Yeah, I'm not sure I can get much closer than this. Go to 60MinutesOvertime.com.
41:08Bill Whitaker:Lioness, the hit original series from Taylor Sheridan, is now streaming on Paramount+. I'm scared, Joe. Scared how we became that world. The world didn't become this. It's always been this way. Starring Zoe Saldana. Keep running! Michael Kelly. You tried to touch us here. It's a two-way street, buddy. With Morgan Freeman. The fallout from this is limitless. And Nicole Kidman. This isn't the end of a fight. This is the start of one. No! Lioness, new season now streaming only on Paramount+.
From the publisher
Correspondent Bill Whitaker reports from Germany’s Baltic Coast on the bombing of the Cap Arcona, a little-known human tragedy in the closing days of World War II in Europe. Once a luxurious German ocean liner, the Cap Arcona was commandeered by the Nazis and, at war’s end, turned into a floating concentration camp. Thousands of prisoners were killed in the aerial attack. Whitaker interviews historians and speaks with Holocaust survivors who witnessed the bombing to bring this largely overlooked chapter of history to light. This is a double-length segment. Marc Lieberman is the producer.
Correspondent Jon Wertheim travels to Nottingham, England, to visit the Kanneh-Mason family—seven siblings, all celebrated classical musicians, whose talent is truly music to the ears. Supporting one another in harmony as they take to the world’s stage, this extraordinary septet, as Wertheim discovers, is an orchestra greater than the sum of its parts. David M. Levine is the producer.