Born in 1981, Helen Grime studied oboe and composition at the Royal College of Music and came to public attention in 2003, when her Oboe Concerto won a British Composer Award. She was a Legal and General Junior Fellow at the RCM from 2007 to 2009 and, in 2008, was awarded a Leonard Bernstein Fellowship to attend the Tanglewood Music Center. She was Associate Composer to the Hallé Orchestra between 2011 and 2015 and Composer in Residence at the Wigmore Hall from 2016 to 2019.
Ensembles and institutions that have commissioned Helen Grime include the London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Koussevitsky Foundation, Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Among the conductors who have performed her music are Sir Simon Rattle, Pierre Boulez, Oliver Knussen, Sir Mark Elder, Kent Nagano, Marin Alsop and Andris Nelsons.
Grime was Lecturer in Composition at Royal Holloway, University of London from 2010 until 2017 when she was appointed Professor of Composition at the Academy. She was appointed MBE in the 2020 New Year Honours List for services to music. Her music is published exclusively by Chester Music Ltd (Wise Music Group).