A Day of Harmony : Music: Multicultural concert aimed at community building takes on a new timeliness with King verdicts.

SAN DIEGO —  In light of the chaos and community anger ignited in Los Angeles by the Rodney King verdict, Sylvia M’Lafi Thompson is relieved that “Symphony N the Hood,” a mix of community outreach and art presentations, had already been planned to take place tomorrow in San Diego’s Dennis V. Allen Park.

“We know that people are frustrated and angry, but the community rally will give everyone the opportunity to discuss our frustrations and then celebrate our strong community values with music.”

Thompson, director of the local events production company 21 Harlem, has always believed that the arts should have a social conscience. But she never expected how timely the daylong multicultural outdoor festival produced by the San Diego Symphony and 21 Harlem could be. In a neighborhood that has often been stigmatized by crime and turf wars, the rally will bring together youths and adults of various cultural backgrounds in an effort to promote a peaceful and open community spirit.

“This will not be just a day of music, but a day when a concentrated effort will be made to make people understand that we’ve got to find a way to coexist in our society,” Thompson said.

The “Symphony N the Hood” project was Thompson’s brainchild, a free festival designed to combine live music and community

building in the small park at 3700 Market St. Saturday’s festival will offer a Latin salsa band, symphonic music, community services, ethnic food and consciousness-raising from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

This heady mixture proved to be the ideal scenario for the San Diego Symphony, which had been searching for two years for a promising community site for one of its three 1992 multicultural concerts. For the last two seasons, the symphony has presented a Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial concert with a massed gospel choir at Copley Symphony Hall, and last month the orchestra played its inaugural program devoted to Latin American music at the same site. (The positive reception of the Fiesta Sinfonica by the Latino community encouraged the symphony to schedule a sequel on Nov. 21.)

According to Lynn Hallbacka, San Diego Symphony general manager, Thompson proposed the idea for the free outdoor community festival while serving on the symphony’s multicultural task force. For the last four years, Thompson had successfully presented jazz concerts in Allen Park. Although the symphony’s working title for its multicultural festival was “Symphony of Families,” Thompson suggested something more vernacular.

“Symphony N the Hood” plays on “Boyz N the Hood,” John Singleton’s 1991 hit movie about youths in southeast Los Angeles’ black ghetto, and was designed to appeal to youth who would never think of venturing downtown to hear the orchestra play on its own turf.

“A lot of the younger members of the African-American community are into rock and reggae,” Thompson noted. “I think they need a break from loud music. They also need to get a true concept of what a symphony is, to see where the Wynton and Branford Marsalises and the Duke Ellingtons came from.”

Covering its multicultural musical bases--Thompson noted that the park is in the 4th City Council District, one of the most ethnically diverse areas of the city. “Symphony N the Hood” will present jazz pianist Cecil Lytle, the eSOeS traditional Latin salsa band, classical Filipino pianist George Velasco and the San Diego Symphony under guest conductor Jose Guadalupe Flores, music director of Guadalajara’s Filharmonica de Jalisco.

Among the 50 organizations that will have booths and tables at the festival are the State of California’s Economic Development Department, San Diego County’s literacy program, the Tayari adoption agency, the Chicano Future Leaders of America and a number of youth services and drug rehabilitation groups.

“Sometimes people are too afraid to go to an agency and ask for help,” observed Carmen Miner, Thompson’s assistant at 21 Harlem. “But they will go up to a table set up in the park.”

Fourth District Councilman George Stevens will give the community rally’s keynote speech at 11:30 a.m. Building trust and a sense of community spirit is one of the festival’s major goals, according to Thompson.

“In San Diego, the 4th District is always low man on the totem pole, whether it’s schools or social service programs. The festival provides a way for people who live in the district to come out and feel good about themselves,” Thompson said.

But there can be a reciprocal advantage to the symphony, Thompson noted.

“Over the last year, the problems of the National Endowment of the Arts and issues of censorship have given the arts a negative image. But when an arts organization comes into your own neighborhood, you have a chance to overcome those images because you have a personal connection.”

Under guest conductor Flores, the San Diego Symphony will play a concert that embraces several ethnic traditions: Jose Pablo Moncayo Garcia’s “Huapango,” Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue with pianist Lytle as soloist, Duke Ellington’s “Mood Indigo” and “Caravan,” Augustin Lara’s Suite, and Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.

Schedule of ‘Hood’ Events

Schedule for “Symphony N the Hood,” Dennis V. Allen Park, 3700 Market St.:

10 a.m.-noon: Youth rally featuring San Diego City Councilman George Stevens

12:30-1:30 p.m.: Cecil Lytle, piano solo

1:45-2:45 p.m.: eSOeS traditional Latin salsa band

3-3:30 p.m.: George Velasco, piano solo

4-5:30 p.m.: San Diego Symphony concert

For students, the San Diego Unified School District will provide buses to the park site from six schools. Buses will leave at 9:15 a.m. from the School for Creative and Performing Arts, Morse High School and Crawford High, and at 9:45 a.m. from Lincoln High School, San Diego High and Hoover High. The buses will return to their schools after the symphony concert.