The Hermitage Artist Retreat (Andy Sandberg, Artistic Director and CEO), in collaboration with the Philadelphia-based Greenfield Foundation, has selected sound and music artist Rucyl Mills as the winner of the 2025 Hermitage Greenfield Prize (HGP). Mills employs a unique approach to music composition that blends noise art, bass wave, sample collage, and avant-garde R&B. She uses MIDI controllers, drone synths, and effects processors to create experimental compositions that are kinetic architectures for stage and film.
The Hermitage Greenfield Prize is awarded annually, rotating between the fields of music, theater, and visual art. Mills will receive a six-week Hermitage Fellowship and a $35,000 commission to create a new work of music, which will have its first public presentation in Sarasota in 2027.
Mills was selected by a distinguished jury that included Amy Cassello, Artistic Director of the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM); Lia Camille Crockett, music curator for organizations such as NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest, SXSW, and the founder of Parcha Projects; and Grammy Award-winning conductor and composer Robert Spano, Music Director at the Aspen Music Festival and Music Director Laureate for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Past winners of this distinguished honor in the discipline of music includeAngélica Negrón (2022), Helga Davis (2019), Bobby Previte (2015), Vijay Iyer (2012), and Eve Beglarian (2009).
“Amidst a remarkable field of four brilliant finalists, this extraordinary jury faced an incredibly difficult task in selecting a single recipient. Rucyl Mills emerged as an ambitious and original musical voice who impressed the jury with her innovative and forward-thinking proposal,” says Hermitage Artistic Director Andy Sandberg. “Her genre-bending approach to the musical art form embodies the mission of the Hermitage Greenfield Prize: to bring into the world works of art that have a significant impact on the broad as well as the artistic culture of our society. We thank our distinguished jurors for their passion and dedication, and we congratulate all four exceptional finalists, whom we look forward to welcoming at the Hermitage. We’re excited to host Rucyl in Florida for the Hermitage Greenfield Prize Dinner in April, and subsequently as a Hermitage Fellow in anticipation of the first public presentation of her new commission in Sarasota in 2027.”
Rucyl Mills is an American sound artist and an original member of the politically charged hip-hop group The Goats, performing internationally alongside bands like Bad Brains, Fishbone, and The Beastie Boys. Her creative methodologies deeply lean on punk, early dancehall, lovers rock, black folk, new wave, hip-hop, jazz, and experimental musical genres that celebrate anti-conventional compositional structure and performance as protest. Her preferred palette of electronic instruments and experimental software represents her belief that humanity can gracefully evolve using technology in art by democratizing access, and fostering new forms of creative expression and collaboration. Inspired by the experimental jazz musician Sun Ra, Mills co-founded Saturn Never Sleeps, an improvisational futuretronic label and audiovisual group. Mills has created interactive musical experiences, including the “Chakakhantroller,” a wearable MIDI controller for solo audiovisual performance; and “Sound Prism,” a solar powered interactive installation that explores sound as a physical representation of the frequencies of the color spectrum.
Three finalists for the 2025 Hermitage Greenfield Prize include Samora Pinderhughes, an Emmy Award-winning composer and multidisciplinary artist; Xenia Rubinos, a New York-based vocalist, composer, and performing artist; and Conrad Tao, an award-winning composer, pianist, and Hermitage alumnus. All three will receive a Hermitage residency, in addition to a finalist prize of $1,000.
“Great works of art get made when the community coalesces around an artist’s imagination and courage,” said 2025 HGP juror and BAM Artistic Director Amy Cassello. “The Hermitage Greenfield Prize allows time in a beautiful place for artists to experiment and grow. Rucyl Mills is inspired by the complexities and vastness of the universe. Her work as a sound artist brings human beings closer together.”
“All of the artists were so thoughtful and unique in their approaches that it was just a rewarding and fruitful process,” added Parcha Projects founder Lia Camille Crockett. “Rucyl really sparked a curiosity in all of us — in a way that makes us all genuinely excited to see the outcome of her residency and commission. What is also great is that all of the finalists get a Hermitage residency, and this experience is so vital to the creative process.”
“The Hermitage Greenfield Prize has now such a rich history of honoring, nurturing, and promoting the intense creativity of its recipients,” said Grammy Award-winning conductor and composer Robert Spano, also a Hermitage alumnus. “The unique, visionary, and innovative work of Rucyl Mills makes her an ideal choice to fulfill the mission of the prize. I look forward with great anticipation and excitement to hearing the work that this opportunity will afford her to produce. She is an inspiring creative force!”
“I am so honored to receive this award,” said Mills upon learning of her recognition as this year’s HGP winner. “Creating a new piece at the Hermitage will provide such a fertile and enriching environment with no distraction. I am thrilled to be able to further evolve my personal relationship to sound in a space where so many incredible artists have created before me.”
For her Hermitage commission, Rucyl Mills plans to create a notational score and composition that investigates our relationship to superstructures both physically and sonically. Superstructures constitute a major part of the universe; they are so massive that they challenge our understanding of how our universe evolved. “Sound, in the conventional sense, does not travel through the vacuum of space,” notes Mills. “It requires a medium like air or water to propagate. Superstructures interact in ways that can be interpreted as vibrations or waves, which are analogous to sound in certain contexts.” Mills will create a score that maps waves of pressure and gravity on to sonic frequencies, turning ‘Quipu’ data into audio signals for the audience to interpret, allowing the listener to ‘hear’ cosmic events using electronic instruments. Quipu was recently discovered in 2024 and is the largest group of superstructures discovered to date.
Rucyl Mills will be celebrated at the Hermitage Greenfield Prize Dinner on Sunday, April 6 at 6pm at Michael’s On East in Sarasota, Florida. Event Co-Chairs are Robyn & Charles Citrin and Arthur Siciliano & B.Aline Blanchard. Capacity will be limited, so early reservations are strongly recommended. Tables and sponsorships are now available; additional information can be found at HermitageArtistRetreat.org.
In addition to the Hermitage Greenfield Prize Dinner on April 6, the Hermitage Greenfield Prize Celebration will include programs April 4-6 with current and past HGP winners, 2025, including the HGP commission premieres from 2023 recipients Rennie Harris and Sandy Rodriguez at The Ringling. The Hermitage Greenfield Prize Celebration is presented in partnership with the Greenfield Foundation, with the Community Foundation of Sarasota County serving as the Lead Community Sponsor.
