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Peter Farnan

Bio history

Version 1activeSep 28, 2026, 11:49 PM
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Peter Farnan is a man who has maintained a creative career that has taken him from the avant-garde to the mainstream and into the arts and academia. Whilst best known for his work as guitarist and songwriter in alternative and popular music fields - with Serious Young Insects and Boom Crash Opera - in recent decades he has worked in academia and internationally in theatre and film as a composer and sound designer. Farnan has worked at venues ranging from La Mama in Melbourne to the Barbican in London, and on productions including Woyzeck (Malthouse Theatre, with Nick Cave and Warren Ellis), Boy Gets Girl (MTC - nominated for a Green Room award) and The Sapphires (MTC/Belvoir - the original stage production - and its remount with Belvoir/Black Swan). He was also music producer, MD and occasional songwriter on the 2013 feature film The Boy Castaways, an intriguing art house movie that featured songs and performances from Megan Washington and Tim Rogers. Peter is currently composing for an opera project based on Mathew Condon’s A Night At The Pink Poodle with libretto by playwright Shaun Charles. Farnan has said of his theatre, and of writing songs for theatre in particular: "I am not a huge fan of the strictures and style of the 'Musical' but I agree with Weill that 'musical theatre is the purest and most direct form of poetic theatre. The presence of music lifts the play immediately to a high level of feeling and makes the spectator far more disposed to pursue the poetic line." By 'music' Weill is referring to song. I try to write songs that work on a more generalised poetic level. I try to open out the field of possible meanings rather than narrow them down, while at the same time aiming for immediacy and directness." Peter released his first solo album, Maybe This Is Normal, in 2009, and in 2017, a collaborative project entitled Pesky Bones, Vol One which featured multiple vocalists singing his songs and productions, including Paul Kelly, Deborah Conway, Tim Rogers, Rebecca Barnard, Sean Kelly and Charles Jenkins. Five years later, and over forty years into a diverse and highly productive career in music, Peter has now delivered his second, and perhaps most personal solo work.

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