Encore Park stirs excitement and some concerns

On opening night, the school's marching band will join the Atlanta Symphony (along with numerous other local youth groups) in the bombastic, cannon-blasted finale of Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture."

Then, on May 24, the high school's seniors will graduate from the stage.

The concert, says Greene, "is great public time for the school, and with the students working side by side with the ASO, a priceless opportunity."

For the graduation ceremony, the school will pay about $7,000 in fees, including security and audio-visual equipment — or about $3,000 less than the Gwinnett Center charges for a comparable rental.

Brandon Beach, president of the North Fulton Chamber of Commerce, was a key figure in the original Encore Park conception, hoping to build an arts and community center on the site.

"Concerts were the one missing component in north Fulton," he said, "but everyone knows that the arts and performances are a quality of life issue, and we expect [Encore] to bring the business community together. Encore will be our meeting ground."

Yet even as some Alpharetta residents see an attractive opportunity, others are not convinced Encore Park will meet their summer entertainment needs.

Sydney Sivertsen and her husband, John, an attorney, are in their 50s with children away at college. They were initially thrilled that the ASO would be performing just a couple of miles from their house.

As she checked into her options, however, she compiled a checklist of "disappointments" — mostly in comparison with concerts at the ASO's other outdoor venue, Chastain Park Amphitheatre in Buckhead.

Where patrons often bring elaborate picnic meals to ASO concerts at Chastain, Sivertsen worries that Encore Park's no-outside-food rule will steer the event too down-market.

"A hot, Southern evening at the symphony," she says, "calls for vichyssoise, cool pasta salad and fresh fruit, with a nice wine and candles. If we want burgers and hot dogs and beer, we go to a baseball game. It's a different aesthetic, and the ASO should know that."

With frustration in her voice, she adds that if Encore Park's owner, the Woodruff Arts Center, "is being greedy and is mistaken in its sense of ambience, maybe we should continue to fight traffic down [Ga.] 400 to Chastain for our summer arts."

Indeed, ASO leaders had anticipated these sorts of concerns. ASO president Allison Vulgamore sees three distinct identities for its three venues — Encore Park, Chastain and Symphony Hall in Midtown. Encore Park includes 184 VIP seats, although all those spaces are already sold-out for the summer.

"We present the orchestra in different settings," she says. "Chastain is under the stars and you bring your own [food] basket."

At Encore, "we have a chef on-site [for the VIP tables], and you're under a cover in case it rains."