About The Movie
The immensely popular As it is in Heaven swells hearts and minds with the redemptive power of song.
The film centres on Daniel Daréus (Michael Nyqvist from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo franchise) as a famous conductor who is forced to retire to his northern Swedish village after suffering a heart attack. Once returned, he is introduced to the enthusiastic but talentless local Lutheran choir, as well as a number of small-town problems plaguing the community. As the characters develop, so do the songs, with the film building to a high note that soars.
As it is in Heaven cemented itself in history for being nominated for an Academy Award, as well as for every possible category in the Guldbagge Awards – ‘Swedish Oscars’ – on the year of its release.
About Anders Nyberg
Anders Nybrg and his wife Jennifer Ferguson
Anders Nyberg is a conductor, composer, poet, walker and an Oscars-nominated script-writer.
He studied choral conducting at the Royal Music Academy of Stockholm for Eric Ericson among others and composition privately for Bengt Hallberg, but confesses that his greatest musical teachers and inspiration come from local folk musicians from his two musical poles; his native Malung in Dalarna, Sweden and his adopted home country South Africa. He is a proud citizen of both, acting as a cultural bridge between the North and the South has become a life vocation.
As a founding member of the vocal group Fjedur Anders toured South Africa in 1978, a tour that shaped a lot of his consecutive work. In 1980 he returned to work a year as a volunteer within the Lutheran Church with music and youth in the township of Gugulethu, and Athlone in Cape Town. Back home in Sweden the work with Fjedur continued. Alongside exploring the fusion between Swedish traditional music, choral music and jazz, in concert and on vinyl together with some of the jazz greats of Sweden like Arne Domnérus, Georg Riedel and Bengt Hallberg, he arranged and produced booklets and albums with South African songs of Protest and Praise. Through the international tours of Fjedur and his own extensive workshopping the songbooks, especially “Freedom is coming”, spread rapidly. Today the music has not only become an integral part of Swedish choral life but has spread globally and been translated into a number of languages as well.
Later on Anders' attention focused on the music of Latin America through several tours to Cuba and Central America by himself and with his group Gondwana. His Swedish folk mass "Himmelen Inom” - "Heaven within", inspired by the “misa popular” of Latin America, but with words and music by Anders has won a place among the Swedish choral standards.
As a musician and educator, Anders has given inspired concerts, seminars and workshops in over 20 countries on five continents. In Sweden he has been a recurring guest-lecturer at the Music Conservatories of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Piteå and the University of Växjö, as well as at innumerable other educational institutions, choral festivals and local choirs. He has also given lectures at the theological faculty of Uppsala University. Anders also served as the first director of a unique world music education at the Stiernhööks gymnasium, Rättvik, Sweden.
To facilitate his composing and arranging, alongside the conducting, Anders has developed his own publishing company “Peace of Music Publishing AB”, which has now published around 300 of his compositions and arrangements and has distribution in the US through GIA Publications and in the UK through Wild Goose Publications.
In 1993 Anders conceived and initiated "Sång i Dalgång" a 24-day "song-walk" through the province of Dalarna, with an ad hoc choir and daily concerts. The model has later been introduced as "Sång & Gång" to other parts of Sweden. 2012 saw the birth of "The Path", a five month walk from Trondheim, Norway to Copenhagen, Denmark lined with 25 concerts and 3 seminars on the themes of Environment, Integration and Existence. Anders is chairman of the organization arranging the walk and walked most of the way himself, over 1000 km. The Path has since wound its way through Denmark and is now walking on German soil.
In South Africa Anders, together with his wife singer-songwriter and cultural activist Jennifer Ferguson, developed the “Peace of Music Centre”, a cultural hotspot and meeting place in their home in central Johannesburg. It hosted concerts and workshops and acted as a vantage point for local cultural activism. The work with children was a priority, resulting in among other things the production of “Seeds of Peace”, a CD featuring some of South Africa’s most prominent artists, like Vusi Mahlasela, Gloria Bosman and Johnny Clegg together with street children.
Anders Nyberg has also worked successfully with film. In 2005 the movie "As it is in heaven", co-scripted by Anders, was nominated for an Oscar in the category best foreign movie. The film, about a choir and its conductor, became the most viewed Swedish movie ever as well as receiving great international acclaim. The sequel, "Heaven on Earth", also co-scripted by Anders, had its premiere in September 2015.
