The musical tastes of trucking billionaire Lindsay Fox are a wonder to behold. The octogenarian enjoys perching by a piano into the wee small hours, listening to others play while warbling to favourite ditties such as That's Amore, Volare, My Way and Click Go The Shears.
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Fox owns no less than nine grand pianos. He can hold a tune but can't play a note. Now he plans to replace his barely used pianos with a new set of instruments that he won't play either. Such are the lives of the super rich.
While the billionaire is busy lolling about the Adriatic to celebrate his conception 80 years ago, plans are afoot to switch his nine like-new Steinways for spanking-new pianos that play all by themselves, with the aid of an iPad. The digitally controlled pianolas, which retail for about $220,000 each, are preloaded with music from Bach to Billy Joel – who also happens to be performing aboard Fox's luxury runabout.
Fox's wife Paula has ordered a polished walnut piano for their Toorak bolthole. A second Steinway will be switched over in Fox's Portsea shack, while others will be gifted again to his children and grandchildren.
The bum-bearing billionaire enjoys Steinways so much that he and business partner Mark O'Connor run Exclusive Piano Group (EPG), which distributes the handcrafted instruments in Australia. "Lindsay loves music. His memory is extraordinary and he knows the words to all these songs," O'Connor says.
Fox loves karaoke sessions in his classic car museum meeting room, he says. His high-seas knees-up should be a blast, with guests including actor/performer Hugh Jackman and music guru/mumbler Molly Meldrum. Floating nearby on the Arctic P are casino owner/brawler James Packer and his songstress/squeeze Mariah Carey.
"Lindsay likes everything – actually, that's not quite true, he doesn't really like the pop music of today," O'Connor says. How about Mariah Carey? "Not that I'm aware of," he says.
Sadly, Fox hasn't tried to tickle the ivories himself – not even learning to play When the Saints Go Marching In, the theme song to his beloved St Kilda Football Club. "He keeps telling me he is going to learn it but he hasn't," O'Connor says.
The market for luxury Steinways is growing in Australia, including a recent purchase for the Perth digs of Indonesian billionaire Michael Bambang Hartono.
EPG will celebrate with a cocktail party this Saturday at Sydney Conservatorium of Music, for the Sydney International Piano Competition. Guests will include Aria Award-winning pianist Gerard Willems and compulsorily retired MP Bronwyn Bishop – who now has plenty of time to learn the piano, among other things.
