Alan True was the inaugural Head of the music department. He was instrumental in establishing WAAPA.
Alan True – interview with Terry Watt and Rivka Niesten

I loved Alan as a lecturer. He would help us pass our music tests. He loved people and possessed humility and compassion. God bless him.

Kingsley Iddon

Of all the lecturers at MLTC in the first 5 years you could see in Alan True why Bob Peter wanted him on his Academic Staff. He wanted Academics who could teach and Alan was a natural.

I was lucky to attend Alan funeral and the Wake afterwards at the Kingsley Tavern. We had a special connection through hockey in Collie and the Gilbert and Sullivan musicals Alan produced when we were at Collie SHS. I was in the stage crew. No place for monotones in Alan’s productions.

His perseverance with my ordinary recorder skills at the Rokeby Road Teaching Aids Centre in 1970 paid off in my first 4 years of teaching. He would have been proud of a number of my classes Assembly items. I did get to pay Alan back a little when I coached his son Brynn in hockey at North Coast Raiders North Beach at the mid 1990s.

Terry Watt

My parents were music lovers, but Alan introduced us to all sorts of music I had never heard and of course his classes were fun.

Janet Doswell

Alan True was a lovely soul. Enjoyed his classes.

Maria van der Linden

I promised Alan I would never teach recorder if he gave me C.  I never did.

Ian Francis

I traumatised Alan with my recorder playing. I’m sure he cringed every time I played a note. But somehow I miraculously passed my music unit. Thanks Alan.

Theresa Taverniti

Yes, a truly wonderful person!

Bobbie Smith

Alan played the organ at our church, so I was lucky to have this as well as Alan at MLTC. I was away for his funeral so watched it on line. Alan True and Jean Farrant were a wonderful combination as music teachers.

Ruth Shean

Jean is well known to many students who passed through her classes while she was a music lecturer, first at Claremont Teachers’ College, and then as a foundation member of staff in the Western Australian Academy of the Performing Arts. She taught the first course offered, and was confirmed in the position of Head of Department of Classical Music (WA Conservatorium of Music) subsequent to her having acted in that capacity for some time.

In the mid-1970s, she was commissioned to collaborate with private musicians to create a new course, the Graduate Diploma in Primary Music Education, aimed at private music teachers. Many of her former students went on to become teachers or artists, many of whom were members or performers at the Royal Schools Music Club meetings.

After retiring from teaching, she built a reputation as an expert on the history of music in Western Australia, particularly in the first half of the twentieth century. She authored a book documenting the history of the Royal Schools Music Club (formerly the LAB Club).

Jean was also a member of the university “A Cappella Choir” and the “Australian Society of Music Education. Jean formed and conducted the College Recorder Ensemble.

Jean was a specialist in music of the Eastern Goldfields, especially the place of choirs and brass bands during the time of the WA Gold Rush.

https://api.research-repository.uwa.edu.au/ws/portalfiles/portal/39810807/Farrant_Jean_1992_compressed.pdf

Basil Jayatilaka, is a pianist and composer, and has appeared as soloist and accompanist in concerts on TV and radio broadcasts in Australia, the U.K. and Malaysia. He came to MLTC from Kuala Lumpur.

Basil was a former senior lecturer at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) and has taught at universities in Australia (including Edith Cowan University), the USA, and Malaysia since 1974.

He is a senior adjudicator for the Australian Music Examinations Board (AMEB) in Western Australia. He continues to be an active and influential teacher, often conducting masterclasses and workshops for piano and music students in Perth, including for the Suzuki Music WA program, and holds a PhD from the University of Western Australia (UWA).

Cornelius de Munck came straight to MLTC, from the highlands of New Guinea, where he had been on a special teaching project for several years.

Cornelius became a prominent classical baritone and academic.  He was the Head of Classical Voice and Senior Lecturer of Music at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, and worked at WAAPA from 1984-1997. He also taught music privately in the South-West region of WA, including at Margaret River High School and MacKillop Catholic College in Busselton..

Since then, he has been the Musical Director of the Cape Harmony Choir and has been with the choir for 25 years.

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