Dulcie Sybil Holland AM (5 January 1913 – 21 May 2000) was an Australian composer and music educator. Best known for her contributions to music education through her involvement with the

Australian Music Examinations Board The Australian Music Examinations Board (AMEB) is a federated, privately funded corporation which provides a program of examinations for music, speech and drama in Australia. The organisation had its beginnings at the Universities of Melbourne ...

, Holland has in recent decades gained greater recognition as a composer. She is now regarded by some critics as one of the more significant Australian composers of her generation.

Education

Holland was born in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

in 1913. She began taking piano lessons at the age of six, and attended Shirley School for Girls, known for its academic excellence. In 1929 she entered the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music (now the Sydney Conservatorium) to continue her studies. At the Conservatorium she studied

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

with Grace Middenway and Frank Hutchens,

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...

with Gladstone Bell, and composition with

Roy Agnew Roy Ewing "Robert" Agnew (23 August 1891 – 12 November 1944) was an Australian composer, pianist, teacher and radio announcer. He was described as "the most outstanding of the early twentieth century Australian composers" by Morris Hinson.Hinso ...

and

Alfred Hill Alfred Hill may refer to: * Alfred John Hill (1862–1927), British railway engineer * Alfred Hill (cricketer, born 1865) (1865–1936), English cricketer * Alfred Hill (politician) (1867–1945), British Member of Parliament for Leicester West 192 ...

, eventually completing both the Diploma course (DSCM) and the Licentiate of the

Royal Schools of Music The ABRSM (Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music) is an examination board and registered charity based in the United Kingdom. ABRSM is one of five examination boards accredited by Ofqual to award graded exams and diploma qualification ...

(LRSM) in 1933. In 1936, Holland travelled to

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

to study composition at the

Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music is a music school, conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the Undergraduate education, undergraduate to the Doctorate, doctoral level in a ...

with

John Ireland John Benjamin Ireland (January 30, 1914 – March 21, 1992) was a Canadian actor. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in ''All the King's Men'' (1949), making him the first Vancouver-born actor to receive an Oscar nomin ...

. At the end of her first year, she won the Blumenthal Scholarship for composition, which entitled her to another three years of study at the College. The following year she won the Cobbett Prize for

chamber music Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small numb ...

, but with the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

in 1939, decided to return to Australia. Several years after the war, in 1951, she returned to the United Kingdom for a year to study

serialism In music, serialism is a method of Musical composition, composition using series of pitches, rhythms, dynamics, timbres or other elements of music, musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, thou ...

with

Mátyás Seiber Mátyás György Seiber (; 4 May 190524 September 1960) was a Hungarian-born British composer who lived and worked in the United Kingdom from 1935 onwards. His work linked many diverse musical influences, from the Hungarian tradition of Bartó ...

Career

After returning to Australia from the Royal College in 1939, Holland embarked on a career as a recitalist and freelance composer. In 1940 she married the Australian conductor

Alan Bellhouse Alan Robert Bellhouse AM (28 June 1914 –31 December 1980) was an Australian mathematician, teacher, musician and author of musical textbooks. He founded The North Sydney Symphony Orchestra in 1947. The National Library of Australia holds ...

, with whom she had two children. During the 1940s, in addition to her childrearing and composing, she wrote a number of children's books, under her married name of Dulcie Bellhouse. She also began to write music for the North Shore Symphony Orchestra (founded and conducted by her husband), an association that continued for 25 years. In the 1950s, Holland was commissioned to write musical scores for the

Department of the Interior The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government headquartered at the Main Interior Building, located at 1849 C Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is responsible for the mana ...

, which was then producing a number of documentary films about Australian life for the new wave of migrants entering the country. She eventually wrote the scores for forty of these films. In 1967, Holland joined the

(AMEB) as an examiner. During her long association with the Board, her prolific output of musical studies and pieces for students at all levels of development, along with her authorship of numerous music theory books, were eventually to make her a familiar name in thousands of Australian households. Sales of her didactic writings made her Australia's most celebrated music author. After her retirement from AMEB in 1983, Holland continued to compose, but chose to focus more on the writing of music text books, on the ground that she believed "making new converts to music" to be more important than adding to the volume of existing music. In 1977, she was made a Member of the

Order of Australia The Order of Australia is an honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. It was established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, on the advice of the Australian Gove ...

(AM). In 1993, along with

Miriam Hyde Miriam Beatrice Hyde (15 January 191311 January 2005) was an Australian composer, classical pianist, music educator, and poet. She composed over 150 works for piano, 50 songs, other instrumental and orchestral works and performed as a concert ...

, she was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Letters (D.Litt.) by

Macquarie University Macquarie University ( ) is a public research university based in Sydney, Australia, in the suburb of Macquarie Park. Founded in 1964 by the New South Wales Government, it was the third university to be established in the metropolitan area of S ...

Music

Throughout the course of her seventy-year career, Holland produced a considerable body of serious (as opposed to educational) music. Her work includes orchestral pieces (including a symphony), vocal and choral works, a large output of chamber music featuring different combinations of instruments, and many pieces for piano and other solo performance. She wrote in both the contemporary and neo-classical genres.

Style

Dulcie Holland has been described as "less conservative and more appealing than many of her contemporaries". Her music is generally "melodic, optimistic and sunny", and even her darker moods are "reflective and lyrical".Sitsky and Martin, p. 43. She employs "non-traditional key relationships and swiftly changing tonal centres",''Resonate''. and is "fond of the pentatonic scale with its built-in ambiguities, and the possibilities thus given to modulate to unexpected keys". Overall however, her music is said to convey a "sense of balance, of confidence, of individuality ndof formal structure".

Major works

In addition to the symphony and string quartet, Holland's ''Piano Sonata'' has been called "undoubtedly a landmark work in the Australian oeuvre", while her 1944 ''Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano'' has been described as "one of the greatest treasures of Australian music".Australian Music Centre. Reflecting Holland's difficulty in gaining recognition as a serious composer through much of her lifetime, the latter work did not receive its first public performance until 1991, 47 years after it was first written.

Resurgence

The life and music of Holland has seen a recent resurgence of interest. In June 2020, Dr Rita Crews OAM and Dr Jeanell Carrigan AM published the first comprehensive biography of Holland's life, including a complete catalogue of her works (including unpublished works). The release of this biography also coincided with an album of Holland's works, ''In Tribute'', featuring Carrigan at the piano with Goetz Richter AM on violin and Dr Minah Choe on cello. In June 2021, Australian pianist Ronan Apcar released his debut album ''Dulcie Holland Crescent'' following a research project at the

ANU School of Music The ANU School of Music is a school in the Research School of Humanities and the Arts, which forms part of the College of Arts and Social Sciences of the Australian National University. It consists of four buildings, including the main School of ...

. The works on this album included unpublished pieces by Holland and pieces previously not commercially available. The world premiere of Holland's Concertino for piano and strings was given by Apcar and conductor Leonard Weiss, with the Canberra Sinfonia, on 19 June 2022.

Awards

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

/ APRA awards, 1933, 1944, 1951, 1955 *

ANZAC The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) was a First World War army corps of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force. It was formed in Egypt in December 1914, and operated during the Gallipoli campaign. General William Birdwood comma ...

Festival Awards, 1954, 1955, 1956 *

General Motors The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...

Theatre Award, 1963 *

Henry Lawson Henry Archibald Hertzberg Lawson (17 June 1867 – 2 September 1922) was an Australian writer and bush poet. Along with his contemporary Banjo Paterson, Lawson is among the best-known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial perio ...

Award, 1965 *Member of the Order of Australia, 1977Bellhouse, Dulcie Sybil
It's an Honour,

Government of Australia The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federalism, federal parliamentary system, parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster system, Westminster-sty ...

database of honours. Retrieved 5 June 2008. *Honorary D.Litt. from Macquarie University, 1993 *AMEB Fellowship in Music, 1994

Footnotes

Recurring references

Dulcie Holland
- Australian Music Centre website.
Dulcie Holland
- Music Australia website.
Dulcie Holland: Building a Foundation
by Rita Crews, ''Resonate'' magazine, 18 April 2008 * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Holland Dulcie Sybil 1913 births 2000 deaths Sydney Conservatorium of Music alumni 20th-century classical composers Australian women classical composers Australian classical composers Australian film score composers Women film score composers Members of the Order of Australia 20th-century Australian musicians 20th-century women composers 20th-century Australian women