Eugene Goosens (1893-1962) He was born in London, the son of the Belgian conductor and violinist and an opera singer. He studied music at the age of ten in Bruges in Belgium, then at Liverpool College of Music and finally at the Royal College of Music where he studied composition with Charles Villiers Stanford and the violin Achille Rivarde. He worked as a violinist both in orchestras and string quartets. In 1921 he decided to make conducting his career and founded his own orchestra; with this ensemble he made a number of recordings. He also served as a conductor of several American orchestras, including the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra while at the same time teaching at the Eastman School of Music. He also held a similar postion at the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. In the 1930s he moved to Australia and conducted the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

Among his works were symphonies, concertos, string quartets, sonatas and an octet. His Five Impressions of a Holiday dates from 1914, just before the outbreak of World War I and records his visit to Belgium from where his father came and from where he had studied. He was 21 at the time it was composed. The idyllic music is embued with the aura of the Impressionist movement.