I am a Welsh composer and sound artist based in London.
My practice explores music as a transformative emotional and ritual force, a space for self-expression, self-discovery and shared experience.
Alongside writing contemporary classical music, I collaborate regularly with artists across disciplines to create work for galleries, installations, film and site-specific environments, moving fluidly between the concert hall and contemporary art.
Recent projects include an audiovisual collaboration with digital artist Reuko, presented at immersive art gallery FRAMELESS in London; an ongoing collaboration with Singaporean artist Dawn Ng, including work presented at Frieze New York in 2024 and Singapore Art Week 2026. Other collaborations include integrating sound into a kinetic sculpture by Harrison Pearce.
My debut album, Look How Brightly, presents a retrospective of my music from the past decade, bringing together some of my most distinctive, personal and experimental works to date.
In May 2026, I released my debut album, Look How Brightly, a retrospective of a decade of my music. I launched the album by co-curating an interdisciplinary art exhibition, bringing together 21 international artists to create work in response to my music in Pink Floyd's former recording studios in London. GQ magazine listed the exhibition as “one of the coolest things to do this week in London”, while Gramophone praised the album's “strikingly searching style” and “richly ambiguous musical language”, concluding that “the future looks bright indeed for Mills.”
Alongside my interdisciplinary practice, I continue to work widely within contemporary classical music, writing opera, orchestral, chamber, choral and vocal works. My music has been presented internationally across galleries, museums, concert halls and festivals including the National Gallery, V&A, Barbican, Wigmore Hall, Café OTO, Sónar Festival, Melbourne Recital Centre and Tokyo Opera City, and performed by ensembles including the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, EXAUDI, the Ligeti Quartet, Welsh Chamber Orchestra and Grammy Award-winning Eighth Blackbird. My work has also been broadcast extensively on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4 and featured in The Guardian, The Economist, BBC World, The Independent and Opera Magazine.
My opera, Dear Marie Stopes, premiered at the Wellcome Collection in London in 2018 and was described by The Guardian as “music of supernatural poignancy, melodic but otherworldly.”
My opera Dear Marie Stopes — exploring bodily autonomy, contraception and attitudes towards sex — premiered at the Wellcome Collection in London in 2018, with The Guardian describing the score as “music of supernatural poignancy, melodic but otherworldly” and The Stage calling it “a first-rate addition to the catalogue of one-act operas.” It was subsequently revived at Kings Place in 2019.
My Welsh heritage forms another important thread through my work. Originally from Pembrokeshire in West Wales, in 2024 I composed the first known setting of Christ's Seven Last Words in Welsh, and was commissioned by the National Eisteddfod of Wales to create new works for its 850th festival in 2026. In July 2026, I was also awarded the Hilary Tann Award by the Welsh Music Guild for my “outstanding contribution to music in Wales.”
I originally trained in journalism at the London College of Fashion before studying music at the University of Cambridge. I later completed a Master's degree in composition with distinction at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, studying with Richard Baker and Paul Newland, following earlier private study with Raymond Yiu.
My work has been generously supported by Arts Council England, PRS Foundation, Marchus Trust, Hinrichsen Foundation and the Vaughan Williams Foundation.
Photography: Diana Gomez
Behind the Music
A film by Pedro Velasco
