Scottish composer Helen Grime is this week’s guest on Composing Myself, talking to Wise Music Group CEO Dave Holley and Creative Director Gill Graham about her life in and out of music. Melodic motifs on the conversational score today include her formative years studying the oboe, why a first rehearsal is more nerve-wracking than a premiere, experiences at Tanglewood - the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, why passing knowledge forward through teaching and learning is so important, and the nature of inspiration - “sometimes I seek it, and sometimes I really need it”. As ever, a joyful and enlightening hour.

https://helengrime.com/

The music of Helen Grime has been performed by leading orchestras around the world, among them the London Symphony Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Conductors who have championed her music include Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Mark Elder, Pierre Boulez, Kent Nagano, Oliver Knussen, George Benjamin, Daniel Harding, Marin Alsop and Thomas Dausgaard. Her music frequently draws inspiration from related artforms such as painting (Two Eardley Pictures, Three Whistler Miniatures), sculpture (Woven Space) and literature (A Cold Spring, Near Midnight, Limina) and has won praise in equal measure for the craftsmanship of its construction and the urgency of its telling.

Born in 1981, Grime attended St Mary’s Music School in Edinburgh and, following studies at the Royal College of Music in London, was awarded a Leonard Bernstein Fellowship to attend Tanglewood Music Center in 2008. Between 2011 and 2015 she was Associate Composer to the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester and in 2016 was appointed Composer in Residence at Wigmore Hall in London. She was Lecturer in Composition at Royal Holloway, University of London, between 2010 and 2017 and is currently Professor of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London. She was appointed MBE in the 2020 New Year Honours List for services to music.

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