A.C. Douglas has replied to my post below. He says I'm being "too literal" in discerning the whereabouts of the "core audience" in this whole TAFTO discussion. He doesn't back up his claim that I have a "penchant" for being too literal, but simply states it, which is a no-no known in journalistic circles as telling, not showing. (I'm guessing he's referring to a message I sent him after that video of the boy soprano singing the Queen of the Night's aria began making the rounds. ACD said that the boy "[p]uts to shame 90% of the coloraturas who have the balls to even attempt" the aria. I wrote him, jokingly, that actually, by definition, 0% of coloraturas have the balls to sing it. I thought that was pretty funny, myself.)
It's precisely a new experience for the invitees that I imagine is being suggested in the excerpts ACD quotes. What happens after that new experience remains to be seen. If the newbies become members of the "core audience," whatever that means (Have they heard 112 recordings of Mahler 9? Can place Wagner's anti-Semitism in a historical context? What?), it will be wonderful. But if they start attending two or three concerts a year, it'll be beneficial, too.
As for the last line, "I would suggest to Mr. Geelhoed that in future he focus more on the concept, and less on the terms used to describe it," I'll start doing that as soon as words stop having specific meanings which are then used to describe concepts. No one reads between the lines as much as I do (ask my exes), but if ACD can show me which words connote and imply—and this is entirely by connotation and implication, since the phrase he's using is not there—that building a "core audience" is the goal here, I'll take it all back.
And really, this whole discussion is idle tiddly-winks, so this is all I'm going to write about it.
As a reward for reading all of this, here's a picture of cute kitties.
