Acting

Mustapha Skandrani

Mustapha Skandrani (in arabic : مصطفى سكندراني), born on November 17, 1920 in the Casbah of Algiers in an Algiers family, and died on October 18, 2005 at his home, is a pianist, performer and composer of Algerian Chaâbi music and Arab-Andalusian music. Mustapha grew up and studied up to the elementary certificate in the Casbah, where he was born near the sea and the port of Algiers. Sid-Ali, his father and his two uncles Hamoud and Lahabib were passionate about Andalusian classical music. It was in this atmosphere favorable to music that Mustapha began his musical career by enrolling in the Nadi school "Et-Taraqi" in his hometown. His teachers were Mohamed Ben Teffahi and Abderrezak Fakhardji. His uncles were founding members of the Mouloudia Club of Algiers where he signed in this club as a striker, but he was much more interested in instruments and musical intonations. As a multi-instrumentalist, Mustapha Skandrani is first noticed for the guitar, the mandolin then the guitar game before choosing the piano in 1938, which he will first study with the master of Andalusian music, Ahmed Sebti and then with Cheikh El Hadj Mrizek the great master of the hawzi song who mastered all kinds of musical instruments such as the darbouka, the piano, the violin and the mandola.