Hilary Davan Wetton is Conductor Emeritus of the City of London Choir. He was Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the City of London Choir for 34 years, from 1989. The choir invited him to take the title Conductor Emeritus on his retirement in July 2023. He is also Associate Conductor of the London Mozart Players. He is also Conductor Emeritus of the Milton Keynes City Orchestra, of which he was Founder and Principal Conductor from 1975 to 2007, and of the Guildford Choral Society. Hilary is now Artistic Director of Alina Orchestra, a new professional orchestra that wants to make classical music accessible & inclusive for everyone in the community.

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Founder-Conductor of the Holst Singers, he directed them from 1978 to 1992 and made a number of recordings for Hyperion and Unicorn-Kanchana. He has also made several outstanding recordings for Hyperion and Naxos with both the City of London and Guildford Choirs. His 1994 disc of Holst's Choral Symphony was awarded the Diapason d'Or. ‘Flower of the Field’, recorded with the City of London Choir, London Mozart Players, Roderick Williams and Jeremy Irons, went straight to the top of the classical charts in 2014. ‘Home for Christmas’, with the Military Wives Choirs and Orchestra, was at number two in the classical chart for six consecutive weeks over Christmas 2016. ‘The Nation's Favourite Carols’ - with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra - reached number one in the Chart in 2017. In 2018, he released his second Military Wives recording – Remember – the success of which led to two invitations to appear on the Chris Evans Breakfast Show on BBC Radio 2. At the beginning of 2019, Hilary was appointed Artistic Director of the Military Wives Choirs.

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Choirs and orchestras frequently engage Hilary as a guest conductor both in Britain and overseas. Recent concerts include performances with the RPO and the Hanover Band, and the fiftieth anniversary concert of the Fairfield Hall with the London Mozart Players in the presence of HRH Prince Edward.

A regular performer on BBC Radio 3, Hilary has given many premières both with the BBC Concert Orchestra and with the Ulster Orchestra. In Ulster, he conducted a series of first broadcasts of 19th century British symphonies (by Cipriani Potter, Sterndale Bennett, William Crotch and Samuel Wesley) for the BBC. He also conducted a number of public concerts for the orchestra, collaborating with Barry Douglas, Brian Rayner-Cook and other international artists.

In the opera pit, Hilary has appeared on a number of occasions with Travelling Opera, for whom he conducted Cosi Fan Tutte, The Marriage of Figaro, Carmen and The Barber of Seville. In 1991 he conducted for the French company Ballet du Nord, the first ever danced version of Mozart's Requiem in a double bill with Stravinsky's Apollo at London's Sadlers Wells Theatre. He has also conducted Madame Butterfly for Co-Opera in the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury.

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Engagements abroad have included Bulgaria, Iceland, Norway, and Australia. A twelve-day tour to the United States with the Milton Keynes Orchestra culminated in two concerts in New York's Carnegie and Town Halls to capacity audiences. He made his debut in Seattle with the Bremerton Orchestra and Chorus in Brahms Requiem in May 2009.

Hilary has a long-standing commitment to music-making with young people: from 1983 to 1987 he was conductor of the Orchestra of the Birmingham Conservatoire and he has worked with Youth Orchestras as far afield as Melbourne and Singapore. He was conductor of the Scottish Schools Orchestra from 1984-1995 and of the Edinburgh Youth Orchestra from 1994-1997, with whom he toured Scandinavia in 1996 and made a live broadcast on Danish Radio. On his return from this tour he made his debut with the National Children's Orchestra and was invited to return to them in 1998 for concerts in the Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester and for their Millennium celebration concerts in 2000. He has since appeared with them regularly and conducted all their concerts in 2008 for their 30th Anniversary Season. In 2016, he directed the NCO in a memorable performance of Elgar's First Symphony.

For 25 years, Hilary directed the Classical Roadshow, which commissioned a wide range of works for performance by massed children's groups with professional orchestras and narrators. He was Professor of Conducting at the Guildhall School of Music from 2011-13 and Senior Music Associate at Somerville College, Oxford, from 2015-2018.

Hilary is also much admired for his audience building skills. His Classic FM programme, Masterclass, introduced a very wide audience to orchestral music; he was Jo Brand's organ teacher for the BBC1 series, Play it Again and his talks on conducting as a metaphor for management have inspired audiences both in Britain and the United States.

He has been honoured by the Open University (Hon. MA), De Montfort University (Hon. DMus) and the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (Hon. FRBC). His book, 'Reflections on Conducting' was published in 2021.

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