Farr wrote Awfulise as part of The Song Company's Leunig Calendar project called The All-Leunig Song Almanac. The project involved 12 composers setting one Leunig poem each for a selected month of the year. Farr chose February, mainly because of the Leunig-esque quirkiness of Farr's birthday falling on the leap day of February 29th.
Gareth Farr is an indisputably colourful figure in New Zealand music. And whether scored for percussion duet or the resources of two large orchestras, Farr's music reflects his personality – bold, brash, or delicate and sensuous, but inevitably, immediately, engaging. Rhythmic elements of his compositions can be linked to the complex and exciting rhythms of Rarotongan log drum ensembles, Balinese gamelan and other percussion music of the Pacific Rim. In addition to his music for the concert chamber, Farr has written music for dance, theatre and television.
