Born in 1981, Helen Grime studied oboe with John Anderson and composition with Julian Anderson and Edwin Roxburgh at the Royal College of Music. In 2003 she won a British Composer Award for her Oboe Concerto, and was awarded all the major composition prizes in the RCM. In 2008 she was awarded a Leonard Bernstein Fellowship to study at the Tanglewood Music Center. She became a lecturer in composition at the Department of Music at Royal Holloway, University of London, in January 2010. She was appointed Associate Composer to the Hallé in 2011.

Helen has had works commissioned by some of the most established performers, including London Symphony Orchestra, BCMG, Britten Sinfonia, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the Tanglewood Music Center. Conductors who have performed her work include Daniel Harding, Pierre Boulez and Yan Pascal Tortelier.

Her work Night Songs was commissioned by the BBC Proms in 2012 and premiered by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Oliver Knussen.

Grime's Near Midnight received its London Premiere at the 2014 BBC Proms (9 August) with the Hallé and Sir Mark Elder.