Anders Nyberg's blog

Det går nog knappt en dag utan att jag tänker i tacksamhet på dig, Åke. Alla minnen som vi delat under årens lopp blir man ju ständigt påmind om genom gamla sånger och sammanhang, människor och miljöer som poppar upp litet här och där, litet nu och då. Häromdagen slogs jag av en lust att hålla ett tacktal till dig för allt du betytt för mig, men antog att det är väl något jag kommer att skjuta upp tills din begravning - om nu inte du kommer att sjunga på min dessförinnan. Men varför vänta till dess, tänkte jag sen? Det är så dags då, nej låt mig få uttrycka detta nu! Och så vaknar jag idag och ser att du fyller 60 år! Detta är mitt tillfälle, att få skriva ett helt oförblommerat tacktal till en underbar människa som nog betytt mer för mig - och för många andra - än någon annan utanför den innersta familjekretsen! Den första gång jag såg dig var den första gång jag hörde dig; i barnkören som repade i kyrkskolan under fröken Gun Anderssons ledning. Och vi fortsatte s...

Rehearsal  In front of the throne of the Royal Castle, Stockholm Svensk version nedan! Letter to my fellow singers and musicians after the concert: ”Passion”, performed in "Rikssalen", the Royal Castle of Stockholm, Sweden 10/9 2015. Friends, co-creators, I sit on the train on my way home from Stockholm, the waves from the concert have still not subsided, it is still rocking under my feet. It feels like we are on our way… I got very inspired at the rehearsal the day before the concert when we read loudly from the book ”Talking with Angels” on ”the new art”; ”What has been vessel - will become drink. What has been drink - will become intoxication.” What has previously been form becomes content, if not transcendence. The art will evolve, but where will it go? The new music, what will it sound like? Nano-intervals? Multi-rhythms? White noice? No, I think the art will come to its fullness not by more technical maneuvering and more fiddling, but ra...

We are here in the embrace of Mundekulla, the course centre in the middle of the woods. Every morning kicks-off with a circle-dance on the lawn. What a wonderful way to start the day! The first morning we sang a new song of Anne Elmberg: I am beautiful  just the way I am. You are beautiful  just the way you are. Shining like a star, we are here to be  who we truly are. We are beautiful  j ust the way we are. And we danced and saw our beauty. Just as we are. It is wonderful for a walker from the long, straight roads to rest in a circle-dance. That is a home-coming of sorts. The meeting is the reward of the walker, the fellowship his goal and the trust his staff. The festival ended with us all summing it all up by creating and singing a new song with Sadhu the dancing dervish in the middle.  Download the full score from here! The lyrics were born out of the moment:  (in a not-so-poetic English translation;)...

Papis, Gunilla and Peter on the go. It is the third and final seminary on our walk on the theme of ”Existence” at Mundekulla retreatcentre. We sit in a circle under the trees in the meadow and listen and talk. The first day it was Sadhu from India and Papis from Senegal who spoke about their life-journeys starting from the religious contexts they grew up in. Sadhu’s grandfather was a Brahmin (a Hindi priest) and as a child he followed him to the temple to pray four times a day. And Papis who comes from a Muslim family grew up with five prayer times in the mosque each day. Despite the fact that they have lived on two different continents with two different religions you are struck by the similarity of their stories. They are deeply rooted in their traditions and carry them still with gratitude and pride. But they have both gone further, seeking their own road away from a world dominated by religious conformity and sometimes bigotry. They have walked a path towards their o...

I leave the path once more to backtrack to another festival; Ängsbacka in Värmland. A first visit for me at a festival that holds an unchallenged place as the number one alternative festival on the market in Sweden. A mixed assortment in the colours of the rainbow; from tarot to tantra, from maya to mantra. It is open, it is curious and let me say it from the start: I like it. You buy in to it even if there’s sometimes techniqal problems, the schedule is constantly stretched and the organisation is showing all the problems a flat organisational structure with lots of cooks can display. But you buy in to it because of the athmosphere where all the senses are made wide open for all possibilities, creating exciting meetings and miraculous magic. It is a sheer pleasure to work in such an environment and most of the artists appear for free. You can go safe to your workshop knowing that once it starts you can hand over to the sovereign dire...

Så var vi då framme vid körstämman i Skinnskatteberg. Få företeelser väcker så många fantastiska minnen vid liv som körstämman i Skinnsberg.  Jag hade lyckan att få vara med de första 12 åren från 1982 och framåt, tillsammans med sånggruppen Fjedur och på egen hand. Därefter har jag återkommit som åhörare eller deltagare några gånger. Körstämman har som de flesta andra sommarfestivaler haft sina toppar och dalar. Från en rätt anspråkslös början sköt festivalen upp och maxade nog någon gång under slutet av 80-talet eller början av 90, för att sedan dala mot en mer tynande existens som många gånger varit nedläggningshotad. Men den har ändå seglivat levt kvar kanske mycket på grund av oss alla som haft sådana fantastiska minnen från stämman. Det spelar ingen roll om jag söker bland upplevelserna som sångare, körledare eller åhörare; det är samma känsla av en oerhörd gemenskap som med musikens hjälp sträcker sig jorden runt, men också en underbar närvaro i ett syréndoft...