Helen Grime

Born in York, England, in 1981, Helen Grime is an award-winning Scottish composer and oboeist known for her uniquely expressive, critically acclaimed orchestral and chamber works. Her musical journey began as a nine year old when she attended the City of Edinburgh and St. Mary’s Music Schools, before going on to study composition and oboe at the Royal College of Music. Grime won a British Composer Award for her Oboe Concerto in 2003 whilst still a student; she graduated with a masters degree in 2004.

Since coming to public attention in 2003, Grime’s music, which often takes inspiration from other art forms (painting, sculpture, literature, etc), has regularly been performed by renowned orchestras from all over the world including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Manchester’s Hallé Orchestra (where she was Associate Composer from 2011 to 2015). Additionally, her music has been championed by conductors Sir Mark Elder and Sir Simon Rattle amongst others, and she has been commissioned to compose works by prestigious ensembles and institutions such as the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and London’s Barbican Centre.

During the course of her career, Grime has been the recipient of numerous awards and opportunities including a Leonard Bernstein Fellowship to study at the Tanglewood Music Center (2008), a two-season spell as Composer in Association at Wigmore Hall (2016 - 2018) and two Scottish New Music Awards for orchestral works, Two Eardley Pictures (2017) and Woven Space (2019). Furthermore, her short composition Virga (2007) was selected by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra as one of the top ten classical works of the decade, and she was awarded an MBE for services to music in the late Queen Elizabeth II’s 2020 New Year Honours List.