Over the Horizon 2018: Best Ringtone in the Netherlands

Jantien Westerveld, Wibi Soerjadi, Buddy Vedder and Menno van den Berg with the winning students from Nijkerk (Credit: Margot de Heide / Roy Beusker photography)

Every year, Samsung invites a new contributor from a diverse portfolio of famous composers, musicians and orchestras to re-arrange “Over the Horizon”. This is the first time that elementary school students have remodeled the signature ringtone of the Samsung Galaxy smartphone range. With Queen Máxima of the Netherlands as one of the project’s ambassadors, the ‘Digital Composing in Class’ competition received a wealth of media attention in its native country, with more than 110 articles published. The competition is an initiative supported by the Méér Muziek in de Klas (“More Music in the Classroom”) Foundation and Samsung Electronics Benelux.

Michiel Dijkman, Menno van den Berg, Jantien Westerveld, Wibi Soerjadi and Victor Coral join students from Oldenzaal, the Netherlands, as they experiment with digital composition tools (Credit: Margot de Heide / Roy Beusker photography)

Innovating Music Education with Digital Technology

The contest provided 36 workshops on digital composition to over 1000 students from all 12 provinces of the Netherlands, where students worked in groups to create their take on “Over the Horizon”. The children composed their own ringtones based on several melodies recorded by the Metropole Orkest. Using a special music composing program on smart tablets, students put together ringtones using their own ideas and imagination, adding rhythm instrument accents and their own lyrics – both sung and spoken – to one of the melodies. Providing the students with useful worksheets and instruction cards, the students were encouraged to harness their own creativity in this exercise combining both digital and analogue composition methods.

“The digital revolution is shifting the world we currently live in. This also changes the skills that the 21st Century demands of our children.” said Menno van den Berg, President of Samsung Benelux. “For years, Samsung has been pushing for innovative education in Dutch classrooms. Together with the Méér Muziek in de Klas Foundation, we have enjoyed innovating music education over the past few months. It was inspiring to see children working with so much enthusiasm. The final festival in the Royal Concert Hall was the icing on the cake.”

Each year, with each new generation of Galaxy devices, “Over the Horizon” is rearranged to mirror the aesthetic transformation of the devices themselves. For 2018, Samsung reached out to Icelandic composer Pétur Jónsson to reimagine the melody.

Delicately layering instruments, Jónsson’s minimalist arrangement takes you away on an atmospheric journey of discovery. The piece begins with the soft tones of a single piano playing the refrain. As additional instruments are gradually introduced, the sound rises to a crescendo before melting away. As the video cuts away from the opening scene of Jónsson at the piano, it prompts you to imagine travelling over the remote Icelandic countryside. Capturing the beauty of Nordic nature, the camera pans over misty mountains and jagged cliffs, steaming geysers and snow-blanketed hills.

Listening to this year’s piece by Jónsson, you will find that the notes arouse the most pure, fundamental elements of the human sentiment that often remain hidden in our daily lives. In this way, the latest version of Samsung’s brand sound has the power to relax the mind and heal the soul, thus resonating with all who hear it, regardless of their age.

Get a first listen of Jónsson’s version of “Over the Horizon” in the video below.