Born in Wimbledon, Holland attended Westminster School and then the Royal College of Music, where his composition teacher was Frederick Corder.
[1] War service (which earned him an OBE)[2] interrupted his career in theatre music and afflicted him with shell-shock for the rest of his life.
The orchestral Christmas Suite, based on music for a children's play, Santa Claus (produced at the London Scala in 1912) remained popular into the 1920s and 1930s.
[9] He composed a children's opera, King Goldemar in 1902 and wrote new songs for the operetta The Merry Peasant at the Strand Theatre in 1909.
Orchestral pieces include a tone poem Evening on the Lake, a one movement violin concerto, and The Songs from Nyasaland (Op.