Mohamed Iguerbouchène

Mohamed Iguerbouchène was the eldest of eleven children born to Saïd ben Ali and Sik Fatma bent Areski. He attended an English primary school in Algiers. It was here he was spotted in a music class by Bernard Fraser Ross, a wealthy Scottish bachelor, who spent winters in Algiers, and had served jail time as a sexual procurer.[1] Ross convinced Iguerbouchène's parents to allow him to take the boy to England for his musical education.

Iguerbouchène attended the prestigious Imperial Academy of Music in 1924 in Vienna for one year. In 1925, at the age of 18, he performed his first concert in Bregenz, Lake Constance.He exhibited his talent chaining works of his own directory like Kabylia Rapsodie n. 9 and Arabic rapsodie n. 7. The culmination of his early years of work resulted in his winning his first prize of harmony, counterpoint, and piano instrumentation. In 1934, after several successful symphonies, Mohamed was introduced to the Société des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs de musique (SACEM) as a songwriter, and in that same year he was also introduced as a member of the Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques (SACD).

Iguerbouchène was fluent in 18 languages including Russian and Japanese. In France, at the école normale des langues orientales de Paris, he was a student of Professor Destaing, where he studied Tamahaq, Tachawit and Tashelhit.[2]

After some time, Iguerbouchène shifted his focus to compose for the cinema as opposed to symphonic music. After a few documentaries (Aziza) and a short film (Dzair), Julien Duvivier asked him to collaborate for the soundtrack of Pépé le Moko, a film whose main role was played by Jean Gabin. This film was the catalyst behind Mohamed's career as a film composer. The two artists shared the composition of the soundtrack in association with Vincent Scotto. (On the film's credits his name appeared as "Mohamed Ygerbuchen".)

In 1938, he met the singer Salim Halali in Paris (who was originally from Annaba), who helped Mohamed to compose fifty songs, mainly in an Arabic Flamenco style. The collaboration was successful in Parisian clubs and they also toured the rest of Europe. They were in particular very popular in North Africa.

Following his approach to the BBC, in 1939 it broadcast one of his orchestral works, a 'Moorish Rhapsody', which was conducted by Charles Brill.[3] Some listeners thought that he was a Russian composer, which earned him the nickname Igor Bouchen. In 1938, he composed songs with Vincent Scotto for the film Algiers. Because of Iguerbouchène's success in music direction, he was hired in 1940 by Paris Mondial to compose music for 20 short films for Mercier Film Inc. film studios. In early 1945, he composed about 100 songs based on poems in Thousands Nights by Rabindranath Tagore. In 1946, he composed music for, Les plongeurs du désert by Tahar Hannache.[4]

Iguerbouchène composed for the 1962 French short Le songe de chevaux sauvages, directed by Albert Lamorisse about wild horses in France.

• Jordaan, Peter A Secret Between Gentlemen: Lord Battersea's hidden scandal and the lives it changed forever., Alchemie Books, 2022.
• Katz, Ethan B.The Burdens of Brotherhood: Jews and Muslims from North African to France, Harvard University Press, Harvard, 2015.
• Ounnoughene, Mouloud Mohamed Iguerbouchène: Un Oeuvre Intemporelle, Dar Khettab, Algiers, 2015.

• Mohamed Iguerbouchène at IMDb
• The Criterion Collection page
• Mubi page
• The Med-Mem Project 1988 documentary from EPTV