At the Conservatorium she studied piano with Grace Middenway and Frank Hutchens, cello with Gladstone Bell, and composition with Roy Agnew and Alfred Hill, eventually completing both the Diploma course (DSCM) and the Licentiate of the Royal Schools of Music (LRSM) in 1933.
The following year she won the Cobbett Prize for chamber music, but with the outbreak of World War II in 1939, decided to return to Australia.
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, which was then producing a number of documentary films about Australian life for the new wave of migrants entering the country.
[8] 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.
[10] 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.
[11] In June 2021, Australian pianist Ronan Apcar released his debut album Dulcie Holland Crescent following a research project at the ANU School of Music.
[12] 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.