Between 1963 and 1970 he studied at the Cologne Musikhochschule: composition with Joachim Blume and Bernd Alois Zimmermann, piano with Else Schmitz-Gohr and Alfons Kontarsky, and orchestral conducting with Wolfgang von der Nahmer.
From the mid-1970s, Höller also composed at the Paris research institute IRCAM, where Pierre Boulez had invited him, and in 1989 his opera Der Meister und Margarita (after the novel of the same name by Mikhail Bulgakov) was premièred at the Grand Opéra.
Subsequently, he succeeded Stockhausen as artistic director of the WDR Studio for Electronic Music from 1990 to 1999.
In 1993 he accepted a call to the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin as professor of composition.
In addition, Höller has presented lectures and held composition courses at many European and American colleges.