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Hilary John Davan Wetton (born 23 December 1943) is a Britishconductor.
He has married three times, in 1964 to Elizabeth Tayler and in 1989 to Alison Kelly. He is married to Professor Tonia Vincent with whom he has one daughter.
Davan Wetton isMusical Director of theCity of London Choir andAlina Orchestra, as well as Associate Conductor of theLondon Mozart Players. He isConductor Emeritus of theMilton Keynes City Orchestra (of which he was founding conductor) and of theGuildford Choral Society which he conducted from 1968 - 2008. Other choirs of which he has been Musical Director include the Leicester and Hastings Philharmonic Choirs and the Surrey Festival Chorus. He was Founder Conductor of theHolst Singers with whom he made a number of recordings. His discography also includes theHolst Choral Symphony, with the Guildford Choral Society and theRoyal Philharmonic Orchestra, which won theDiapason d'Or, and several recordings with the City of London Choir, including Flowers of the Field with the London Mozart Players (number two in the Classical Charts for eight consecutive weeks) and The Nation's Favourite Carols - with the RPO - which reached number one in the Chart. Orchestral recordings includeHolst'sThe Planets with the LPO, which was the recommended version in the Penguin Guide, and a series of symphonic recordings with the MKCO of nineteenth century English symphonies bySamuel Wesley,Cipriani Potter,William Sterndale Bennett andWilliam Crotch.
In the opera pit Davan Wetton has appeared with Travelling Opera, for whom he conductedCosi Fan Tutte,The Marriage of Figaro,Carmen andThe 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'sApollo at London's Sadlers Wells Theatre. He has also conductedMadame Butterfly for Co-Opera in theMarlowe Theatre, Canterbury.
Davan Wetton was Director of Music atSt Albans School, Cranleigh School,St Paul's Girls School andTonbridge School, and has conducted some of the British youth orchestras. He also has an association with theNational Children's Orchestra. For 25 years, he directed the Classical Roadshow, which commissioned a wide range of works for performance by massed children's groups with professional orchestras and narrators. He is an Honorary Fellow of theBirmingham Conservatoire, where he conducted the orchestra from 1983-1987; he was Professor of Conducting at theGuildhall School of Music from 2011–2013. He was Senior Music Associate atSomerville College, Oxford, from 2015–2018.
He appears as a guest conductor with choirs and orchestras both in Britain and overseas, and has performed onRadio 3. He introduced and conducted theClassic FMMasterclass programme from 1989 to 1994, as well as teachingJo Brand the organ for the BBC1 seriesPlay it Again. He has made recordings with theMilitary Wives Choirs the 2018 disc,Remember was created to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War.
He has been awarded honorary degrees by theOpen University (MA) andde Montfort University (DMus).
