At the same time, my mother looked up at the star in our Swabian village, and although it shone many light years away from us, the two of them found a common home for minutes with this glimpse into the past.
From 1962, he took part in the Darmstädter Ferienkurse for Neue Musik and was a guest student of Pierre Boulez, Bruno Maderna and Karlheinz Stockhausen.
In an interview on the occasion of his 60th birthday, he answered the question of how he manages as a composer to appeal equally to children and adults: Hiller considers young listeners and viewers to be self-confident and intelligent and does not want to bore them with a reduced theme or tonal language – neither the multi-layered and dense, yet easily comprehensible libretti Michael Ende's nor his music are "simple" in this sense.
The turtle Tranquilla Trampeltreu in the musical fable of the same name, for example, is rewarded for her stubbornness, perseverance and self-discipline despite her unpunctuality – she arrives a whole generation too late for the royal wedding of the lion Leo XXVIII.
Hiller also thinks that musical theatre works for children should definitely contain passages that can be remembered: "Earworm melodies should be allowed, even though they are considered taboo and people look crossly at you [if you write them].
After Ende's death, Hiller first worked with Herbert Asmodi (The Story of the Little Blue Mountain Lake and the Old Eagle), then, since 1997, with Rudolf Herfurtner.
He also drew on literary models by Theodor Storm (The Rider on the White Horse), Christian Morgenstern (Heidenröslein) and Wilhelm Busch (Der Geigenseppel).
In addition, Hiller composed music for the 30-part series Klangbaustelle Klimperton for Schulfunk [de] and was the organiser of the Musica-Viva studio concerts under Wolfgang Fortner.
Numerous of his students have obtained scholarships there (Nélida Béjar, Dieter Dolezel, Christoph Garbe, Eva Sindichakis, Markus Zahnhausen).