Biography

Mohamed Iguerbouchène (in Kabyle: Muḥend Igerbucen, in Arabic: محمد اقربوشن) is an Algerian composer born November 13, 1907 in Aït Ouchène (Wilaya of Tizi-Ouzou, Kabylia, Algeria). 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 there that he first studied music theory and where he was seen and heard by Bernard Fraser (later Bernard Fraser Ross), a wealthy Scottish bachelor, who spent his winters in Algiers and had served eight years from prison as a pimp for Cyril Flower, 1st Baron Battersea and other aristocrats. Ross convinced Iguerbouchène's parents to allow him to take the boy to England for his musical education.