Contemporary German composer Wilfried Hiller was born on March 15, 1941 in Weißenhorn (Swabia). In 1956 he commenced piano studies at the Augsburg Conservatorium under Wilhelm Heckmann, following which he began working as an organist and ballet repetiteur. In 1963, he continued his musical education at the Munich Academy of Music, where he studied composition (Günther Bialas), opera direction (Heinz Arnold), percussion instruments and kettledrum (Ludwig Porth and Hanns Hölzl), and musical theory (Hermann Pfrogner). In 1967 Hiller started working as a percussionist in various orchestras, for example with the Gärtnerplatz State Theater and the Bavarian State Opera. In 1968 he created the concert series "musik unserer zeit" (Music of our times). His subsequently close association with Carl Orff influenced the years thereafter. Hiller met Orff in 1968 and worked with him closely as his student until Orffs death. Meeting Michael Ende in 1978 also represented the beginning of a fruitful and artistic partnership and intimate friendship that lasted until Ende's death in 1995, generating a large number of successful works like "Die zerstreute Brillenschlange" (The scattered spectacled cobra), "Vier musikalische Fabeln" (Four musical fables), "Der Goggolori", "Die Jagd nach dem Schlarg" (The hunt for the Schlarg), "Das Traumfresserchen" (The dream glutton), and "Der Rattenfänger" (The rat catcher). Hiller has been the Music Director of the Bavarian Radio since 1971. In 1989 he became a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, was assigned a lectureship in 1991 at the Munich Academy of Music, and in 1993 was appointed teacher for composition at the Richard Strauss Conservatory in Munich.