CAUTIOUS ‘88-89 SEASON PLANNED : S.D. Symphony Still Plagued With Unsettling Management Turnover

Despite the San Diego Symphony’s optimism about its 1988-89 season, which it will announce at a press conference scheduled for Wednesday, management continues to be plagued with unsettling turnover.

On Friday, music administrator Edmundo Diaz del Campo resigned. His departure follows last month’s resignation of resident conductor Fabio Mechetti and the replacement earlier in the season of hand-picked marketing director Jane Langdon.

The orchestra’s 1988-89 season promises another year of cautious programming, sprinkled with some clever gimmicks and the appearances of two rising Russian guest conductors not heard locally before. The blockbuster programs include Robert Shaw, the dean of American choral conducting, leading the orchestra and the San Diego Master Chorale in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on Jan. 13-14.

Aligning programs with holiday themes, the symphony and the Master Chorale will join forces for a pre-Christmas “Messiah” on Dec. 16 and 18, conducted by Andrew Parrot, alternating with Brandenburg Concerto performances on Dec. 15 and 17. Halloween will be observed a week early (Oct. 22) when the Nickelodeon Series presents the classic film “Phantom of the Opera,” accompanied by theater organist Dennis James and members of the symphony in the pit.

Two conductors who appeared earlier this season, and who are rumored to be competing for the vacant position of symphony music director, will return for multiple appearances. Yoav Talmi of the Israel Chamber Orchestra will conduct four subscription concerts over the course of the season, and West German conductor Bernhard Klee will visit the city for two programs in November.

Soviet conductor Leonid Grin will make his local debut on Jan. 5, and his colleague Valery Gergiev will conduct the following month. Mexico’s most noted younger conductor, Eduardo Diaz-Munoz, will conduct Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony on March 9 and 11.

The season opens Oct. 14 with Donata Rezeti conducting Mendelssohn and Respighi, and closes May 19 and 20 with Joseph Silverstein playing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto.