Black-Korean Unity Concert Becomes an Extravaganza : Lifestyles: The idea for an amateur event in Lancaster burgeoned into a cultural exchange at the Shrine Auditorium.

Gloria Barden-Ching, a fledgling African-American composer, could almost hear soothing musical chords resonate from her piano as she read poetic verses written by renowned Korean poet Han Yongun.

In a month, a 40-piece orchestra will enliven her musical interpretation of the poet’s words before thousands of Korean-Americans and African-Americans gathered for an evening dedicated to ethnic understanding.

What started as an amateur community concert in the Antelope Valley has burgeoned into a two-hour extravaganza at the Shrine Auditorium in which dozens of black and Korean groups and churches show cultural pride and inter-ethnic understanding.

Adding a cross-cultural twist to the Shrine concert, black composers will set Korean poetry to music and vice versa. Four choirs, including a gospel group and Korean singers, will raise their voices in unison. Many in the audience will be bused in from churches throughout Los Angeles.

At a time when violence on the streets has strained relations between blacks and Koreans in Los Angeles, participants said next month’s concert reflects the eagerness of both groups to move toward reconciliation.

“Too many negative things have been going on this past year and people want something positive to focus on,” said the Rev. Leonard Jackson, associate pastor of the First AME Church. “Wounds have been open and people are eager to try and heal them.”

Tensions between the groups escalated last year after a string of shooting deaths of African-Americans and Korean-Americans at Korean-owned stores in South-Central Los Angeles. One shooting prompted a black boycott of a store. The shooting of Latasha Harlins, a 15-year-old black girl killed by Korean grocer Soon Ja Du, and Du’s subsequent sentence of probation intensified anger among blacks.

The idea for a friendship concert spotlighting African-American and Korean-American talent originated with Lancaster Mayor Henry Hearns, who is a black minister. Concerned about the troubles 65 miles away in Los Angeles, Hearns brought together Korean and black leaders in his own city to organize a small cultural exchange at the 750-seat Lancaster Performing Arts Center.

“We thought we could keep those kinds of problems from coming to Lancaster if we could get our heads together and organize,” Hearns said. Several black and Korean-American members of the Los Angeles Composers Guild agreed to help organize the Lancaster show for May 12.

But word of the Antelope Valley concert spread to ministers and leaders of the Los Angeles Roman Catholic Archdiocese and the project snowballed into the Los Angeles event scheduled for May 23. Churches and choirs volunteered to help. Barden-Ching, director of the composers guild, found that professional musicians and singers were quick to agree to perform at reduced costs. About $20,000 in corporate donations quickly materialized.

“We want this to be a model to show how we can seek unity in our diversity,” said Father Fisher Robinson, who works on multiethnic ministries for the archdiocese.

The highlight of the concert will be bilingual poetry narrations to orchestral scores written by young African-American and Korean-American composers.

Composer Susan Shin has chosen clashing cymbals and quick-paced piano chords to complement the words of Korean folk poet Kim Sowol, who wrote of icy rain and mountain winds.

Barden-Ching has selected slow, melodic tones for the poem “Ferryboat” by Han Yongun. To Koreans, the poet is as well known as Robert Frost or Walt Whitman, said Peter H. Lee, a professor director of East Asian language and culture at UCLA.

The ferryboat, Lee said, is a symbol for a kind of Buddhist saint who would guide his people through troubled times.

“He would help us be ferried across the world of sorrow to another shore,” Lee said. “To a place of enlightenment.”