Hermitage Artist Retreat Announces 2025 Recipient of the $35,000 Hermitage Greenfield Prize

Sound artist Rucyl Mills will undertake a Hermitage Retreat to compose a new work, to be premiered in 2027

The Hermitage Artist Retreat has announced that composer and sound artist Rucyl Mills is the recipient of the Hermitage Greenfield Prize, which carries a cash prize of $35,000. Awarded annually, the prize rotates between the music, theater, and visual art fields.

Alongside the cash prize, Mills will be commissioned to write a new work — which she will compose during a six-week Hermitage Fellowship. The premiere performance of the resulting piece will take place in Sarasota in 2027.

Three of the finalists for the prize will also receive a Hermitage residency and $1000 cash. They are 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.

An original member of the politically charged hip-hop group The Goats, Rucyl Mills employs a style that draws on influences as diverse as punk, early dancehall, lovers rock, black folk, new wave, hip-hop, jazz, and experimental musical genres. She is the co-founder of the Saturn Never Sleeps label.

Mills's work has also encompassed 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.

In 2025, the award jury comprised 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.

"Amidst a remarkable field of four brilliant finalists, this extraordinary jury faced an incredibly difficult task in selecting a single recipient," said Andy Sandberg, Hermitage Artistic Director. "Rucyl Mills emerged as an ambitious and original musical voice who impressed the jury with her innovative and forward-thinking proposal."

"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."