60 Minutes - The Sherpas of Everest, Presenting the Kanneh-Masons

Episode Date: December 22, 2025

Correspondent Cecilia Vega journeys to the Himalayas for the adventure of a lifetime—trekking to Everest Base Camp at the foot of the world’s tallest mountain, Mount Everest. Guiding her is 19-year-old Nima Rinji Sherpa, the youngest person to summit all 14 of the world’s highest peaks. He embodies a new generation of Nepali climbers demanding recognition on the global stage. Correspondent Jon Wertheim travels to Nottingham, England, to visit the Kanneh-Mason family—seven siblings, each still under 30, 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. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tonight, 60 minutes reaches for a new high with a breathtaking climb to base camp on Mount Everest. I am not looking down. Don't talk. Oh, God. It's windy. I do not like this at all. We hiked 10 days into thin air. Welcome to Everest base camp. Our guides were the Sherpas who risked their lives to assist climbers. We found there's little margin for error on the journey to Everest. This is the setting that produced what is surely the most statistically improbable story in classical music history. Seven siblings, each of 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. I'm Sharon Alphonsey. I'm John Wertheim. I'm Cecilia Vega. I'm Nora O'Donnell. I'm Bill Whitaker. Those stories and in our last minute an 18-letter milestone. Tonight on 60 Minutes.

Everest, Earth's highest mountain, needs no introduction. At 29,032 feet, it sits not only at the top of the world, but at the top of countless bucket lists. 40,000 people trek to Everest base camp in Nepal every year. This past spring, we joined them. Hiking for 10 days, sometimes on all fours, often barely breathing. And we could not have done it without the Sherpas. Indigenous to the Everest region, Sherpa is an ethnic group, a last name, and a job description. Often cast as superhuman, they are the porters and guides who risk their lives to help others reach the summit with little recognition.

Our guide, Nima Ringei Sherpa, is part of a new generation hoping to change that. High in the heart of the Himalayas sits Lukla, one of the most dangerous airports in the world. You see how short there is? It's incredible. It doesn't look very safe. Where the short, unforgiving runway is carved into the edge of a cliff. There is no margin for error. Bravo, bravo, welcome. Yes.

It is the start of what will be a 10-day trek to base camp at 17,598 feet elevation. We meet our porters who strapped 800 pounds of our camera gear to their backs and heads before setting off on the trail. I guess you're always training. Nima Ringi Shurpa, the youngest person to summit the world's 14 highest mountains, has trekked up this mountain more times than he can count, a veteran who is just 19.

We begin our journey, dodging animals at 9,337 feet. Prayer wheels believe to send blessings with every turn mark the way. Out here, you learn the mountain etiquette quickly. When you hear the warning bells, you get out of the way fast. Hoarders, often overloaded with almost twice their body weight, rule the fast lane. All in, it will be a 50-mile trek and 8,261-foot climb to Everest Base Camp, an ungraceful uphill grind. We've spent months training for it, studied the route, and yet nothing prepared. you for this.

Just look down and finish. No, I am not looking down. Don't talk. Oh, God. It's windy. I do not like this at all. Another suspension bridge dangle 45 stories above a roaring gorge below. You can't be scared of anything if you do what you do.

Of course, you are scared, but you have to balance it in a way that you can be confident, you know, when you do things. What do you tell yourself when you get scared? Oh, I'm just trying to calm myself down and just realize who I am. With every step, we move deeper into Sherpa country and closer to the shadow of Everest. Is there a spiritual connection to Mount Everest? I think if there is no Everest, we'll still be farming. We'll still be looking after the yaks, the goats.

And the mountain has given us like a meaning to a life, I think, yeah. Mount Everest has given the Sherpa people a meaning. Yeah. Almost 150,000 Sherpas live in Nepal, less than 1% of the country's population. Renowned for their endurance, they thrive where oxygen is scarce. Among them, one name rises above all. Did you grow up learning about Tenzing Norga? Yes, we had to learn about him.

In 1953, Tenzing Norga, a Sherpa from Nepal, guided Sir Edmund Hillary of New Zealand, on the first-ever summit of Everest. It was among the most defining moments of the 20th century. And yet while it cemented Hillary and history, Norgay's contribution was largely overlooked. What does he mean to the Sherpa people? I think it was because of him, like, who made the Sherpa a brand today. And for me, he was always a very big motivation,

just to understand that, okay, maybe we can also be someone like him. Today, Nima is chasing the recognition that once alluded his idol. It doesn't hurt that he comes from mountaineering royalty. His dad holds the record as the youngest person to summit Everest without supplemental oxygen. His uncles were the first brothers to conquer the world's 14 highest mountains. We are in good hands as we arrive into Namche, at 11,300. feet. Here we meet Nima's uncle, Mingma Sherpa, a former yak farmer who started as a porter, earning a dollar a day carrying loads for foreigners.

I come to Kathmandu, carry the lot by porter, 30 kays, 70 kays. I show up the people. I'm strong. I carry like 90 cases too. Almost 200 pounds. He climbed literally to the ranks of Sherpa guide, a top. A top of top job reserved for the strongest and most skilled. Every step is do and die. Every step is maybe we are alive or not life, you know? Every step is that dangerous. Yeah, it's dangerous.

Sometimes it's nighttime work, sometimes it's uplaunch. But our goal is summit. In 2009, Nyingma and his brothers started their own company, Seven Summit Treks, responsible for nearly a third of all Everest expeditions. Now they want to prove that. Sherpas are more than indispensable guides to Western climbers, and they are banking on Nima to show that Sherpas can be climbing stars too. We're almost near camp one now.

At 16, while most teenagers his age were in a classroom, Nima was doing this, climbing into what's known as the death zone. That's when the altitude is above 26,000 feet, and the body's organs begin to shut down minute by minute. For his first summit in 2022, Nima climbed and recorded on his way up, Nepal's Mount Manuslu. So that first climb, how hard was it? Don't say easy. It was hard. But every second I was excited because I never knew what I was going to, what I was going to see after 10 meter. Of course, the main problem that I had was, I had a lot of muscle crimes. And I think it's mostly because I was too young for my age to start at that time. I was sleeping at night. I had some pain on my lungs, some pain on my heart. But for some

reason, I don't know why. I kept wanting to go up. And I never felt like I was going to not summit. Even in the face of avalanches and serious injuries, it took Nima just two years to scale all of the world's 14 tallest mountains. The previous record holder did it in nine years. years. What does it take to do this? So there has to be a lot of meaning. Why do you want to do it? Because many times the mountains will start to question you why you are here. The mountains question you. The mountains question you. Because when you go to Everest, you can feel the energy that you are so

small. At that time, you have to have a really like an iron heart to know why you are here. You cannot say, I'm just here for fun. That's the worst thing that you can convince yourself. So why are you there? I was on a mission to finish all the 14, and I knew I belong in this industry. And so everyone has their own reason, and the reason has to be really big that you don't give up, you know. So getting the crampons ready.

Despite the achievement, big brands never offered endorsements the way they have for Western Mountaineers who reach summits. Do you think the fact that you haven't received any of those endorsements has to do with where you're coming to? from? Maybe yes because of that, but I know my time is going to come. I don't want to rush. It sounds like the same deliberate, considered approach you take to those mountains, the one you've taught us walking up these mountains. Yes. Wow, steep. Holy smokes. By day five, it is a battle between our lungs and gravity. It's me feel it in your legs. You said push off.

off the poles, right? You're not out of breath, I am. We are at 13,500 feet elevation. At this point, our inner thoughts are no longer being held in. This is really hard. They can catch me on the camera taking a break. I don't care. It just looks close, but there's another.

More stairs. I have to emotionally prepare. Gets a lot harder? Final way to Porte. Steep. Very steep. You're used to it. After eight hours of trekking, we arrive in Portsy.

Thank you. The remote village where Nima trained to become a mountaineer. Hello. I'm going to stay. We are welcomed with ceremonial scarves, a symbol of honor and respect. And greeted by Nima's mentor, Conrad Anchor, one of America's top mountaineers, who returns to this village each year. What a beautiful home you have. Wow. It's just breathtaking, literally breathtaking. Warm up on this wall here.

Anchor opened the Kumbu Climbing Center in Portsay in 2003, to provide Sherpas with specialized technical training to improve safety on high-altitude expeditions. Smooth technique. Nima graduated top of his class. We would show up and fancy gear and all the best stuff, and we would see our staff there with worn out gear or not the proper gear, and then not having the technical knowledge. And for me, it was eye-opening.

Is there an inequity between West. climbers and Nepalese climbers? Oh, yeah. It's not just sponsors. It's the value of what they do. I mean, a Western climber dies, and it says the community rallies up, and there's fundraising.

And yet, for the Nepali climbers, it's not recognized in that same sense. After a night in a tea house, we leave Portsé behind. Our porters are already lined up the mountainside, as we begin the push toward 14,500 feet, taller than most mountains in the United States. We are just 10 miles now from Everest Base Camp. But we cannot go on without a stop that has become tradition for Nima before he summits.

A 600-year-old Buddhist monastery, where we receive a blessing meant to keep us safe. The monks tie a thin cord around our neck, a simple thread to protect us on the mountain. We are ready for Everest. When we come back, big business of base camp and the dangerous journey to the summit. Once viewed as a near impossible feat in the most brutal conditions achieved only by the most daring,

climbing Mount Everest has shifted from a symbol of ultimate adventure to something near mortals can accomplish and take a summit selfie to prove it. Today, Everett's, is a booming multi-million dollar high-altitude industry, with guided climbs fetching six-figure sums. Base camp has become a tourist destination, as we learned when we made the trek in May. The commercialization has brought wealth and opportunity to the Sherpas of Nepal, but also pressure as they carry the weight of the climbing season. It is peak Everest season, that narrow window in May when the weather holds just long enough for climbers to make their move up to the top of the world. We have been walking for eight days.

So pretty. And are now crossing a critical threshold when the body begins to falter. As we gain altitude, every breath delivers less oxygen. In extreme cases, when the brain swells and lungs fill with fluid, severe altitude sickness can be fatal. It's why we don't take the easy way up in a helicopter. The body needs the slow ascent to acclimatize. These are the memorials are right here.

Uh-huh. for all the climbers who pass away. The hillside ahead is covered in memorials. This one is from 2014 avalanche. For those who never made it back from Everest Summit. One in three deaths on Everest is a Sherpa. In 2023 alone, 18 people died the most in one year. So high up, their bodies are almost impossible to recover.

Our guide, Nima Ringhi Sherpa, the youngest climber to summit the world's 14 highest mountains, knows this all too well. It seems like death is inevitable in what you do. I've seen many people pass away, and yeah, it's always, it's always there. But you believe that you're not going to die. You use death almost as a motivator? You have to be more careful. in the mountains because every time you go you are so energized and you feel like nothing is going to happen to you and then when you see someone pass away or you know then you feel like okay

this is this is real yeah we did really well so far i'm very emotional about to cry but don't say that today is the first time we'll be touching 5 000 meters 16 000 400 and 4 feet to be exact. Which country you are from? From Canada. Even up here in this glacial valley, you're a hero. Nima is a celebrity. This high up, besides the tourists, it's you, the yaks, and the altitude that crushes your chest. It took me 12 days to get up this hill. We're mere hours from base camp. It's gotten much colder. Tonight, maybe minus 15?

Minus 18? Maybe. Oh, that's brutal. Our porters who carried all our gear up this mountain have already made it to base camp and are heading back down and onto their next job. Look at them. They're running down the mountain.

I'm barely making it up, and they're coming back down already. This is amazing. Thank you. This is the final approach. Really, almost there now. Oh, my God. Less a trail than a passage to where the high Himalaya begins. Just as you can see, base camp.

There it is. We did it. Uh-huh. After 10 days of climbing, we catch our first glimpse of Everest Base Camp. It sits on top of constantly shifting and melting ice. Wow. Oh, incredible. Oh, what is that?

The rock is falling off. The world's highest glacier, the Kumbu Glacier. Freezing. Nose feels like it's going to fall off. This is where you try to not fall in the glacier lake. Every rock counts. Here at 17,600 feet above sea level, every breath delivers only half the oxygen.

It's like breathing through a straw. We're so close. Our lips are blue, a sign that we are not getting enough oxygen. It's like an Instagram photo shoot. Yes, filmless stone. But we've made it. Welcome to Everest Base Camp. Uh-huh.

I was like, am I going to make this? Do I need a helicopter? So nice to see you. Hamaste, thank you. We're officially here now. Oh, my goodness. From a few dozen successful summits in the early 1980s to a near record, almost 500 climbing permits issued this season,

Everest has never been more commercialized. And climbers go to new extremes to stand out, such as the British team who this season. summited Everest in less than a week by using xenon gas to boost oxygen levels in their blood. Has tourism changed Everest for better or worse? For Nepal, of course, Everest has been a blessing for Sherpas, for the country, the biggest revenue source. It's a big part of your family's livelihood. You have to understand that it's not only us who is getting business, but the taxi driver,

the heli pilot, the lodges, the porters, the whole economy is sustained. You know, so you cannot just say that only we are profiting. So everyone is profiting from this. Nima Sharpa, our inspiration. Thank you, guys. Commercial expeditions have transformed Everest into high-altitude luxury. Today, some climbers pay up to $180,000 for premium packages that come with private chefs, a movie theater,

and espresso. machines. For better or worse, this is Everest now. And starting in 2013, Nima's father, Tashi Lakpa Shurpa, helped build it, turning an isolated mountainside into an economy. What was once a week's long, bone-chilling weight at base camp for a summit window, that lull in the weather, when it's safe to attempt to move to the top, can now feel like summer camp on a glacier. Small luxuries aside, two nights here test every ounce of resilience. Breathing, eating, and sleeping are struggles. And the bathroom is a bed of rocks in a flapping tent.

The wind is brutal, the cold piercing, and the terrain offers no ocean. shelter from the elements. Camp two, this is Camp 2, 6,500 meters. As always, it's the Sherpas who shoulder the burden, especially on expeditions that extend beyond ours and push up to higher camps and ultimately to the summit, a journey that can take weeks. A bridge. Through it, they navigate Everest's deadliest terrain, the Kulhu Icefall.

A maze of shifting. towers of ice and bottomless crevasses, it's the elite Sherpas called Icefall doctors who go in first. They build the route with ladders lashed together over sheer drops. Every step is a gamble. Sherpas cross far more than any climber, risking everything for someone else's summit. To make it safer, innovation is taking flight. For the first time, expedition companies, including Seven Summit treks, are using drones to ferry loads in high altitudes. The drones are flying around as we speak right now.

The drones are now helping the icefall doctors. They're helping to take the ladders, the ropes. And at the same time, the drones are helping to bring down all the trash and many things. The hope is that the new technology might reduce the number of fatal accidents. So these are jobs that Sherpas would have done in the past. The job is not gone away. It's just making the job easier and safer and faster. So if it takes a porter hours to climb from base camp to camp one,

how quickly can a drone do it? Three minutes. Three minutes? Three and a half minutes, yeah. Wow. Inexperience can be deadly. especially at the top of the world's highest mountain. From Everest Summit.

In the death zone where every minute counts, one stalled climber can trap dozens behind them for hours, turning Everest into the world's highest traffic jam. When the inevitable rescue is needed, it's Simone Morrow who gets the call. The Italian has been flying helicopters for Nima's family and climbing this mountain for years. In April, he pulled off this dangerous rescue mission. So high up, there was barely enough air to keep the rotor blade spinning.

You can't imagine how many people they come up. Some with not enough acclimatization, some other with not enough preparation. And they start to feel bad. And if I don't go and pick them and quickly took them down, they die for pulmonary edema, selberidema. And this happened quite often, even in the night while they are sleeping in the lodge. In the morning they go, they try to wake up, they are dead. Even for those who survive the night, another danger often looms. This one is big.

This avalanche stopped just short of our tents, one of many that followed a five-point-firm. five magnitude earthquake when we were on the mountain. For sure, this is an extra stress that you feel it. We felt the stress. I heard the avalanche all night. But honestly, the base can for such kind of danger, you have a higher danger here than not higher. I'm glad you're telling me this on our final day as we're about to leave. It was intentional that we didn't tell you anything.

Plan of the day. When he's not flying around the mountain, Morrow, one of the world's top climbers, scaling them. And now he's taking Nemo with him. Together, they are training to conquer more peaks, this time without fixed ropes, supplemental oxygen, or support teams. It is survival as sport. It's snowing also very cold, huh? There's a difference between you and me. What's different in here? I think we are a little bit better in suffering, maybe. You've heard me complaining. People like Simone, me, like my dad, my uncle.

We know we come from zero. We're nobody in this world, and we created something for ourselves. So, like, this is your legacy, but the mountain is also your legacy. You know, usually you don't talk to 19-year-olds about their legacies. Yeah. I don't know about legacy for now. Maybe one day, then I will have my own legacy, maybe after 20, 30 years, yeah? All right, we'll circle back.

back in 30 years. Oh, I'm in Catmandu, though. I'm not coming back all the way up here. Yeah. Say hello to the sound department. What it takes to film on Mount Everest. It really was an Olympic physical feat to pull off what these guys did. Go to 60 Minutes Overtime.com.

that the most successful music conservatory is not in Paris, Vienna, or Berlin, but rather, in a house on a treeline 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. Each of the seven is still under age 30, representing the young crossover stars that the ever-graying classical music world so urgently needs. Oh, and what other thing?

They're all siblings. Presenting the Kane Mason's. It's rare these days to find all seven Kani 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 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. Roll call. Genoa 23, Amanata 20, Sheiku 26, Brima 28, Isida 29, Konya 25, and Mariatu 16, the Gretto von Trapp, as it were. The Connie 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 last winter, the bond between the siblings expresses itself as a kind of musical banter. We notice when you play together,

there really seems to be this unspoken connections, telepathy. What is it like playing with a sibling versus company meant you're not related to? Well, because we're so close, I think there's like 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. That dynamic helped the Kanye Masons build a devoted fan base. A diverse young fan base in a genre desperate for a wider audience. 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 in 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. There was never a grand plan here, say the parents. Connie 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, yeah. Lots of football, cricket, karate. Yeah, I've forgotten, yes. Lots of things. 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 you... No, it all happens accidentally, really. The eldest, Isida, started on piano when she was six. She took to it. And as the Kani 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.

Sheko 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, 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. It became clear each also had talent. Blazing, abundant talent,

which Stuart, an executive in the travel industry, and Kadi, 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. Kadi 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? 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. 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. 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. Looking down like the radiator stadium. At the unlucky performer.

And then we take it in turns and perform. 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. 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. 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, Kadi says the kids have always called the shots, and it's never been about clicks, likes, or commerce.

We're the Kani-Masons. 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 and the novelty of seven kids and shopped a reality show.

Yes. How did you make these commercial decisions what to pursue and whatnot? 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 Shaku Caney Mason. From there, the invites and accolades, you might say, crescendoed. Sheikou won a major British music award, En caught the eye of a certain couple in search of a wedding entertainer. When he performed at the marriage of Prince Harry and Megan Markle in 2018, the world heard him play. And suddenly, Sheikou was a bona fide star.

The first cellist ever to crack the top ten on the UK album charts. Here he is posing for British GQ. Ironic because of all the Connie Mason's, Sheikou 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? Oh, with pleasure. And he transforms.

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. Shaku's performance quivers with intensity. Yes, that's sweat, glistening on this $3 million venetian cello he has on loan. That was phenomenal. All seven still perform as a family from time to time. But Conia has pivoted, devoting herself to writing fiction.

Amanata tried out acting school, but music tugged her back and she, decided to return to conservatory. Brima 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 professionals, they're busy recording or touring,

and in the spring, Sheiku will take the stage as artist-in-residence at the New York Philharmonic. You've come into the public as this unit, as the Kani-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 with different ages, we play different repertoire. 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. This is 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. They confess, they remain fiercely competitive when,

say, a portioning dinner or playing board games. Me too. 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. 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 like an integral part of ourselves,

and it would be like deep fear attacking the other person. Yet another way that Connie Mason's maintain harmony. An orchestra greater than the sum of its parts. This most remarkable of septets. There are some words that don't roll off the tongue. Semiquincennial is one of them. But we'll get plenty of practice in 2026 with the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It's a chance to take stock.

How well are we living up to our revolutionary ideals that all are created equal with unalienable rights? Among them, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Starting in January, we'll set aside time at the end of this broadcast to hear from leaders in the arts, science, and business. expect familiar faces and some surprises. They have agreed to share their reflections on America, including how over the next 250 years we might continue working toward a more perfect union. I'm Bill Whitaker.

We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes. Have a Merry Christmas.