[CLOCK TICKING]
BILL WHITAKER: The Cap Arconaonce a German version
of the Titanic.
BILL NIVEN: It had its own tennis court.
It had a heated 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, luxury cruise liner.
Absolutely was.
BILL WHITAKER: 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.
[CLOCK TICKING]
JON WERTHEIM: This 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 Conwy masons.
[INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC]
I'm Bill Whitaker.
I'm Jon Wertheim.
I'm Anderson Cooper.
I'm Lesley Stahl.
Those stories tonight on 60 Minutes.
[CLOCK TICKING]
Everyone knows the story of the Titanic,
the opulent British ocean liner that struck an 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 Lübeck 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 death trap is
one of the most horrific and little known
war stories we have encountered.
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 Cap Arcona
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.
BILL WHITAKER: British historian, Bill Niven,
has spent much of his career, studying the Holocaust.
We met him at Lübeck Bay, where the memory of the Cap
Arconaand a smaller cargo ship, bombed on May 3, 1945,
still haunts this shore.
What is this place?
This is a memorial, an honorary Memorial to the victims
of the two ships that went down with the loss of some 7,000
lives.
It recalls all the nationalities that
were victims of the sinking of the ships.
BILL WHITAKER: There were Americans on the ships.
BILL NIVEN: Yes, there were Greeks.
There were Italians.
And the Jewish people, of course,
represented here by the Star of David.
BILL WHITAKER: Most of the victims were on the Cap Arcona.
[NON-ENGLISH SONG]
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.
BRUNO NEURATH-WILSON: My father was
one of the survivors of the sinking of the Cap Arcona.
BILL WHITAKER: Bruno Neurath-Wilson
came to honor his father Willi, 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 Arconasank,
I try to imagine what happened.
I really cannot imagine what happened on the ship.
BILL WHITAKER: No one could have imagined
this end for the Cap Arcona.
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 heated swimming pool.
It had the most wonderful restaurant,
where you could look out onto the sea, the most
wonderful first class cabins.
BILL WHITAKER: It was a luxury--
BILL NIVEN: It was a luxury--
BILL WHITAKER: A luxury cruise.
BILL NIVEN: --cruise liner.
Absolutely was.
BILL WHITAKER: The Cap Arcona traversed the Atlantic dozens
of times, but in 1933, Germany underwent a sea change.
Adolf Hitler came to power.
In 1939, as German troops invaded Poland,
the Nazis commandeered the Cap Arcona
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.
MANFRED GOLDBERG: We were rounded up and sent
to the concentration camp, just the three of us, my mother, I,
and my younger brother.
BILL WHITAKER: Manfred Goldberg was just 11 years old,
when the Nazis forcibly removed him and other Jews
from his hometown of Kassel, in Central Germany.
MANFRED GOLDBERG: The cruel experiences
during my young years, between 11 and 15,
they're firmly lodged, clearly, in my mind to this day.
BILL WHITAKER: He would survive confinement
in the Riga, Latvia ghetto and four different concentration
camps.
MANFRED GOLDBERG: 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.
BILL WHITAKER: 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 Manfred's little brother,
Hermann, and three other children.
They were never seen again.
MANFRED GOLDBERG: 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.
BILL WHITAKER: What did that do to you and your mother?
MANFRED GOLDBERG: 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 so 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.
BILL 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.
BILL WHITAKER: Schwab only nine years old,
when German soldiers invaded his hometown of Liepaja, Latvia.
Schwab's father, a prominent physician,
tried to protect other Jews in town.
GEORGE SCHWAB: 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.
BILL WHITAKER: Bruno's father, Willi Neurath, was not Jewish,
but he actively opposed the Nazi regime.
My 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.
BRUNO NEURATH-WILSON: Yes, fighting with papers--
with printed papers.
BILL WHITAKER: Willi was arrested for distributing
anti-fascist flyers.
They brought them to Buchenwald.
And from Buchenwald, they brought him
to the concentration camp, Neuengamme by Hamburg.
BILL WHITAKER: The Neuengamme work camp mostly held
political prisoners.
Inside this massive warehouse, historian Bill Niven told us,
prisoners, like Willi 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.
BILL NIVEN: It's a very, very slim distinction.
In the course of this work, they die.
They die in droves.
BILL WHITAKER: Willi Neurath managed to survive,
but as fate would have it, he, Schwab, the Goldbergs,
and the Cap Arcona all would end up
at Lübeck 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 Lübeck Bay.
At the same time, SS Chief Heinrich Himmler
ordered the evacuation of concentration camps.
Why were they trying to clear these places out?
BILL NIVEN: 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.
So getting rid of the evidence meant
getting rid of human beings.
BILL WHITAKER: Thousands of prisoners
were sent to the Nazi holdout at Lübeck Bay.
Willi 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 told us out to sea.
We 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.
BILL WHITAKER: What were the conditions?
Oh, terrible.
Just beyond description.
No toilet facilities, hardly any food.
You could hardly sit.
You could certainly not sleep.
Sounds like hell.
Hell-- hell on Earth, absolutely.
BILL WHITAKER: The barges, each packed with about 1,000
prisoners, were towed by tugboat for six days,
about 400 miles across the Baltic to where the Cap Arcona
was positioned.
The Cap Arconaarrived 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 2 miles off shore.
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 Willi Neurath,
on to the Cap Arcona.
And one must remember, this is a ship that's meant for 1,500
people.
It's not meant 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?
I think they intended them to die.
BILL WHITAKER: 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.
BILL WHITAKER: Once in the Bay, the SS guards
uncoupled the tugboats, leaving the prisoners adrift.
And we were left on the high seas, in the barges alone.
They just abandoned you?
Abandoned.
We were left alone, supposedly, on minefields.
BILL WHITAKER: 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.
They managed to prise loose some very long floorboards
and began using these planks of wood as oars.
And they rowed 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.
BILL 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.
I was a walking skeleton.
BILL WHITAKER: Like many on board,
he was almost too weak to move.
But a fellow prisoner, an acquaintance from his home
town named Jule, saw him and demanded he get up.
Jule sort of dragged me.
I begged him, leave me alone.
I have no strength.
I have-- no, no, no, no, no.
BILL WHITAKER: With Jule's help, Schwab
managed to climb out of the barge.
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 clambered onto the barge
and would hear a lot of shooting.
Everyone 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 Cap Arcona.
And while we stood there, we saw
quite a large number of bombers, aeroplanes, moving overhead.
The Cap Arconawas in the bomber's sights.
The war was nearly over, but the prisoners ordeal was not.
That part of the story when we come back.
[CLOCK TICKING]
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 Cap Arcona could not come
close to shore because it was a large liner.
It was a big ship.
So we were going to be transported to the Cap Arcona
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?
Back of the line.
BILL WHITAKER: He was at a dock near this German Naval
base, where Manfred Goldberg and his mother were lined up, too.
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?
You could see the planes clearly.
You could see the bombs dropping.
Can you remember what it sounded like?
There was some pretty powerful explosions,
and there were quite a few.
BILL WHITAKER: The Cap Arconawas hit.
With more than 4,000 prisoners on board,
the floating concentration camp became a fiery tomb.
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 WHITAKER: Bill Niven is a British historian and scholar
of the Holocaust.
He told us the mistaken attack on the Cap Arconaand a smaller
ship is one of the most wrenching tragedies of the war.
BILL NIVEN: 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.
BILL WHITAKER: At the Cap Arcona Museum, in the town of Neustadt,
by Lübeck Bay, he described the attack.
British typhoons struck in waves.
The Cap Arconawas hit around 3:00 PM.
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.
BILL WHITAKER: Is this the worst case
of friendly fire in the Royal Air Force's history?
Quite probably, yeah.
BILL WHITAKER: Sebastian Cox retired last year
as chief historian for Britain's Royal Air Force, the RAF.
He blames the incident on the fog of war.
Why was the Cap Arconatargeted?
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.
BILL WHITAKER: But other members of the British military
did know.
What we learn from the records that the British were handed
to opportunities very close to the 3rd of May,
in regards to the placement of prisoners on board the ship.
Concentration camp prisoners on those ships.
Indeed.
BILL WHITAKER: Daniel Long wrote his PhD 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.
DANIEL LONG: This is the only official investigation
that was carried out into the tragic sinking of the Cap
Arcona.
BILL WHITAKER: Shortly after the bombing,
a British war crimes investigator
interviewed the intelligence officer
for the squadrons that attacked the Cap Arconaand other ships
in the Bay.
DANIEL LONG: 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.
BILL WHITAKER: That intelligence came in the day
before the attack.
DANIEL LONG: 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.
BILL WHITAKER: 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 conduct a detailed investigation
would, in many respects, be a little pointless.
What are you going to conclude?
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.
BILL WHITAKER: 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.
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
Thousands of prisoners were packed together like herrings.
[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
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.
BILL WHITAKER: Bruno Neurath-Wilson's father,
Willi, a political prisoner, was trapped
on the ship when the bombs hit.
BRUNO NEURATH-WILSON: My father managed
to go to the back of the ship, where it was not burning,
and that he survived, because he couldn't swim.
He survived because he couldn't swim.
BRUNO NEURATH-WILSON: He couldn't swim.
He did not jump into the water.
And prisoners who jumped into the water were shot by the SS.
BILL WHITAKER: When the British realized their mistake,
they dispatched rescuers, who plucked Willi 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?
This front of the beach, yes.
BILL 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 Lübeck 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?
Muppel means something like I love your round face.
She recognized his voice by this one word, "Muppel."
BILL WHITAKER: That ship was a graveyard for so many people.
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 you about this story.
BILL WHITAKER: As for George Schwab,
he pulled inspiration from the horror.
This is a prize for having helped Latvia get into NATO.
BILL WHITAKER: The native of Latvia, moved to New York,
earned a PhD in political science,
and had an illustrious career as an academic and peace broker.
GEORGE SCHWAB: Here, I'm with King Hussein--
BILL WHITAKER: Bill Clinton.
GEORGE SCHWAB: --Bill Clinton.
Dr. Schwab, I think you knew everyone.
Somewhat.
BILL WHITAKER: Manfred Goldberg and his mother
settled in London.
She passed away in 1961.
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.
BILL WHITAKER: The Cap Arconalay half sunken
in Lübeck 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.
[BELL RINGS]
They want the world to remember.
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
Arconaand went to a Jewish cemetery
to chant a memorial prayer.
[CLOCK TICKING]
Let 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.
Oh, and one other thing, they're all siblings.
Presenting, the Kanneh-Masons.
It's rare these days to find all seven Kanneh-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 as 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-- Jeneba, 23, Aminata, 20, Sheku, 26, Braimah, 28,
Isata, 30, Konya, 26, and Mariatu, 17.
The Gretl Von Trapp, as it were.
The Kanneh-Mason siblings have toured
the world, recorded chart-topping albums,
won prestigious awards.
They perform with each other in every combination.
And as we saw at Carnegie Hall two years ago,
the bond between the siblings expresses itself
as a musical banter.
We noticed when you play together,
there really seems to be this unspoken
connection, this telepathy.
What is it like playing with a sibling versus accompaniment
you're not related to?
Well, because we're so close, I
think there's a speed at the way that we interact.
And 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 know each other's playing very well.
JON WERTHEIM: That dynamic helped the Kanneh-Masons
build a devoted fan base.
I also played cello.
JON WERTHEIM: The 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 that 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.
I'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.
JON WERTHEIM: There was never a grand plan here,
say the parents.
Kadie Kanneh, born in Sierra Leonne, and Stewart 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.
Cricket, yeah.
I'd forgotten, yes, tennis.
Lots of 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.
It sounds like it.
It all happens accidentally, really.
JON WERTHEIM: The eldest, Isata, started on piano
when she was six.
She took to it, and as the Kanneh-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.
Sheku 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 that could have been something about,
I think, 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.
JON WERTHEIM: It became clear each also
had talent, blazing, abundant talent, which
Stuart, an executive in the travel industry,
and Kadie, a former English professor,
were determined to foster.
It was intense.
The kids attended local public schools, then practiced 3 and 4
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.
Kadie 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.
There must have been a real hot house.
Was it a hot house?
STUART MASON: No, it's not a hot house.
I think it's a house of children who had a love of music.
They did work hard.
KADIE KANNEH: 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 a florist.
Great.
JON WERTHEIM: 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.
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.
So everyone would be sitting on the stairs,
looking down at the space.
Looking down.
Like gladiator stadium.
At the unlucky performer.
And then we take it in turns and perform.
MARIATU KANNEH-MASON: Yeah.
ISATA KANNEH-MASON: And it's so scary
because you finished performing, and then I
was 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.
JON WERTHEIM: If 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.
Prepare just as those--
ISATA KANNEH-MASON: 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.
JON WERTHEIM: In terms of career strategy,
Kadie says the kids have always called the shots,
and it's never been about clicks, likes, or commerce.
We're the Kanneh-Masons.
JON WERTHEIM: In 2015, they agreed
to appear on Britain's Got Talent.
Good exposure.
But only if they can include real classical repertoire rather
than a pop heavy set list.
You surely could have milked this story, the novelty of seven
kids, and shopped a reality show.
Yes.
JON WERTHEIM: How did you make these commercial decisions, what
to pursue and what not.
KADIE KANNEH: 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.
PRESENTER: Well, here is Sheku Kanneh-Mason.
JON WERTHEIM: From there, the invites and accolades,
you might say, crescendoed.
Sheku won a major British Music Award
and caught the eye of a certain couple
in search of a wedding entertainer.
When he performed at the marriage
of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in 2018,
the world heard him play.
[INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC]
And suddenly, Sheku was a bona fide star, the first cellist
ever to crack the top 10 on the UK album charts.
Here he is, posing for British GQ.
Ironic, because of all the Kanneh-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?
SHEKU KANEH-MASON: Oh, with pleasure.
JON WERTHEIM: --and he transforms.
[INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC]
And 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.
[INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC]
Sheku's performance quivers with intensity.
Yes, that sweat, glistening on this $3 million
Venetian cello he has on loan.
That was phenomenal.
JON WERTHEIM: 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.
Braimah branched out, too, touring
with the dance pop band, Clean Bandit,
before returning to classical.
The youngest, Mariatu, plans to go pro.
As to the four current Kanneh-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 Kanneh-Masons.
How do you balance the collective,
with also trying to carve out an identity as individuals?
ISATA KANNEH-MASON: 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 with different ages.
We play different repertoire.
JON WERTHEIM: Though 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.
The first time this has ever happened.
No, someone said, oh, I saw you on TV this morning.
I said, no, you didn't.
I was asleep.
JON WERTHEIM: They confess they remain fiercely competitive
when, say, apportioning dinner or playing board games.
No.
JON WERTHEIM: 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.
But 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, I think.
And I think that kind of rivalry,
if you feeling good about yourself
as a musician is based on, haha, you did get this concert
and I did, I think that's a very weak base.
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 deeply attacking the other person.
[INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC]
JON WERTHEIM: Yet another way the Kanneh-Masons maintain
harmony, an orchestra greater than the sum of its parts,
this most remarkable of septets.
ANNOUNCER: For a look at how 60 Minutesreports its stories--
Yeah, I'm not sure I can get much closer than this.
ANNOUNCER: --go to 60minutesovertime.com.
I'm Jon Wertheim.
We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.
(SINGING) It's a good time.
One of the best compliments we can ever get
comes from you, the viewer, where people say, you know what,
I always learn something when I watch your show.
It's today's eye opener.
It's your world in 90 seconds.
We want you to walk out the house, fully equipped.
How to keep your skin plump, young.
Juicy.
Join us because we think what, Nate?
There's no better way to start your day.
What he says.
(SINGING) It's good time, good time.
I'm Tony Dokoupil.
The CBS Evening Newsis the story
of America, one day at a time.
I'm Tony.
Success, for us, is not how much we pack into a show,
but how much you take away from it.
So, join me.
This is the CBS Evening News.