Millionaire ‘tortured’ by the piano-playing prodigies next door
TO many, the sound made by two of Britain’s finest young pianists would be a rare joy.
But to their millionaire neighbour, listening to teenage prodigies James and Stephen Carrabino practise was ‘constant torture’.
Joao Baptista claimed that the sessions were so deafening that he was forced from his home and had to stop inviting friends over for dinner.
Mr Baptista, 57, took legal action to silence the brothers and was granted a council noise abatement order restricting the times James, 18, and Stephen, 15, could play their grand piano.
But their parents, banker Jim Carrabino, 56, his wife Annette, 52, fought back and yesterday the dispute reached court.
The Carrabinos claim Mr Baptista sought the order last June only after they had objected to his plans for an ‘iceberg’ basement extension to his home in Kensington, West London.
Their lawyer Mark Dencer told the hearing at Hammersmith Magistrates Court that the piano practice had been taking place for some ten years and James was a finalist at Woking Young Musician of the Year competition last year. ‘We are not talking about a couple of talentless tenyear- olds plunking away tunelessly at Chopsticks,’ he said. ‘Both are under the auspices of the Royal College of Music.’
It became an issue only when the Carrabinos objected to Mr Baptista’s plans for a huge basement extension, for which Kensington and Chelsea council then refused permission, Mr Dencer said.
The families live in adjoining
‘Not plunking away tunelessly’
townhouses each worth more than £7million.
Mr Baptista, 57, told the court that the noise abatement order had given him, his partner and their three children aged seven to 17 ‘our home back’.
He complained that the Carrabinos’ piano was next to a dividing wall between the properties and the sound of the boys’ playing caused sleep deprivation to his youngest child.
Mr Baptista – president of eastern, central and southern Europe operations at IT consultancy group CGI – told the hearing: ‘It was torture, the repetition of piano playing, day after day, again and again.
‘It was a tremendous imposition on us, we could not use the hallway or the study without the deafening sound of the piano.’
When Mr Baptista, who owns three homes, was asked what he meant, he responded by singing musical scales loudly in court.
‘We had to stop having people over for dinner, it was just awful,’ he said. ‘We could not even have conversations, even at weekends, we would have to stay away from the house.
‘It was fine when they were younger, their fingers were weaker, but now it is just a constant torture.
‘Once they decided they wanted to become professional entertainers it has been a nightmare.’
The hearing continues