Notable Alumni
The alumni association of MCKK is known as the Malay College Old Boys' Association (MCOBA) and it was established in 1929.
Notable alumni include
- Dato' Onn Jaafar, the father of Malay nationalism
- former Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak Hussein
- former Agriculture Minister, Chief Minister of Kedah and President of International Islamic University Malaysia, Tan Sri Sanusi bin Junid ms:Sanusi Bin Junid
- former Deputy Prime Minister Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, Malaysian ministers Hishammuddin Hussein, Effendi Norwawi, Fauzi Abdul Rahman and Nazri Aziz, politician and former chairman of the Barisan Nasional Backbenchers Club Shahrir Samad, the Sultans of Pahang and Perak, late Omar Ali Saifuddin III of Brunei from 1932 to 1936 and the Yang di-Pertuan Besar of Negeri Sembilan. Pak Sako or Ishak Haji Muhammad, Tan Sri Yahya Ahmad and Dr. Azahari Husin were also alumni.
The novelist and composer Anthony Burgess (1917–93), author of The Long Day Wanes: A Malayan Trilogy, was a master at MCKK. He taught English and history and was housemaster at King's Pavilion, between 1956 and 1957, during the headmastership of J.D.R. "Jimmy" Howell. According to Burgess' This Man & Music, he wrote some music there under the influence of the country, notably Sinfoni Melayu for orchestra and brass band, which included cries of Merdeka (independence) from the audience. No score of any, however, has been delivered to posterity. The "Ode: Celebration for a Malay College", Burgess had written for the college's 50th anniversary in 1955, "was swiftly expunged from the school's choral repertoire", when "within months ... he had to leave the school after falling out with the headmaster, JD Howell. The following year Burgess published his first novel, Time for a Tiger. A thinly veiled account of his time at Kuala Kangsar, it so cruelly caricatured Howell and his colleagues that, as Burgess recalled in his autobiography, some of those who deemed themselves traduced 'sought advice about libel' from a local lawyer. The verses of the Ode have survived but not Burgess' original melody.
The alumni association is based in the Penthouse of the MCOBA building in Kuala Lumpur.
Read more about this topic: Malay College Kuala Kangsar
Famous quotes containing the word notable:
“a notable prince that was called King John;
And he ruled England with main and with might,
For he did great wrong, and maintained little right.”
—Unknown. King John and the Abbot of Canterbury (l. 2–4)