PACIFIC SYMPHONY PICKS ASSISTANT CONDUCTOR

Edmundo Diaz del Campo has been named the Orange County Pacific Symphony’s first assistant conductor and director of education activities, officials announced Wednesday.

Two additional key staff appointments will be announced in the next few weeks, according to Keith Clark, founding music director of the 7-year-old orchestra. These are the posts of general manager--vacant since the resignation of Topper Smith last March--and marketing coordinator, a new position.

Diaz del Campo, 38, a veteran instrumental and choral music educator, has served as assistant conductor of the Conservatory of Music Orchestra of Mexico City and as cultural minister of the Fine Arts Commission of Mexico City. Most recently, he was music director of the Contra Costa Christian High School in Northern California.

Clark said Diaz del Campo, a native of Mexico City, will assume both posts immediately. In so doing, he will conduct some concerts next season, will supervise existing in-school and family-matinee concerts, and will help set up a Pacific Academy of Music, a conservatory chiefly for high school students, at the orchestra’s new headquarters in Santa Ana.

The symphony association will begin moving its offices this month from Fullerton to the new facility--a three-story, one-time church structure, downtown--now called the Pacific Symphony Center, Clark said.

Clark also announced that the $15,000 National Endowment for the Arts grant it received last week will be used to underwrite concerts held at Orange Coast College and other community auditoriums in Southern California in 1985-86. The Pacific Symphony was one of 17 regional-category orchestras to win federal grants this year.