[2] Hillestad established in 1974 the record company Kirkelig Kulturverksted,[1] for which he has produced a large part of the releases.
He has arranged concerts honoring Dalai Lama and Tibet (Dharamsala 1998) and for building bridge between the two Koreas (Seoul 2000).
As a response to the rhetoric of George W Bush, he initiated and produced the CD Lullabies from the Axis of Evil with artists from Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Afghanistan, North Korea, Syria and Cuba (2004).
The record was followed up by a series of productions with Rim Banna from Palestine and Mahsa and Marjan Vahdat from Iran.
Hillestad has together with Mahsa Vahdat translated a selection of 100 poems of the Persian poet Hafez into Norwegian.