Hassen MCHAIKHI

Hassen grew up in Rdayef a little Town of Gafsa in the south-west of Tunisia.
The revelation started when he had his first violin lesson at the age of 14, in the Oriental club in the local youth house, and then he started one year later his experience in playing in a group. He pursued classical Music studies in the Higher Institute of Music and theatre of el Kef North-west of Tunisia at the age of 18 years old with Violin Masters, a road that led him to play in the Tunisian Symphonic Orchestra directed by Sir Hafeth Makni.
In 2010, he carried his Master degree in music and musicology in the Higher Institute of Music in Tunis, the Capital of Tunisia, where he scrutinized Mr Zouhair Gouja and got inspired to start the journey of discovery of the Tunisian music mainly the popular music like Gasba and Zokra. Hassen soaked up his methodology and sense of details and it became his approach to discover the music of the brotherhood of Stambeli and learn “Chkachak” and Gombri with Mohamed Khachnaoui who was of great support to help him become the Gougay player he is today, an old instrument that is played no more since the death of the last player Ali Ben Hassin in the sixties, and remained marginalized since then by the brotherhood of Stambeli, musicians and Tunisian musicologists.