He has received degrees from Northwestern University, Queensland Conservatorium, and the University of Kansas and was awarded a research fellowship to Institute Fabrica. Currently, Hills is an active performer, composer, and recording artist in Los Angeles, as well as a member of the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet.

Hills is the creator of Percussive Storytelling, a program that brings classical music and storytelling to kids from low-income communities. The program recently marked its 1,700th performance and has reached more than 350,000 children in 38 states and ten countries. Hills has released two award-winning albums and three children’s books. Through Percussive Storytelling, Hills was named as the inaugural Gretsch Fellow in Children’s Music at the Fred Rogers Institute for 2021-2022, as well as a recipient of a 2022 Individual Artist Fellowship through the California Arts Commission.

An advocate for percussion as an artistic discipline, Hills has been the artist-in-residence at Rocky Mountain National Park, BigCi in the Blue Mountains of Australia, a fellow at the OMI international artist’s colony, and an arts in social change fellow through the National Endowment of the Arts and the state of Colorado.