Classical Music Identity Crisis

Just read Anne Midgette's article about "Classical Crossover"  and it speaks to an issue that most classical musicians and the people who love classical music are struggling with for the past decade.  Namely, how do we now define classical music?  For years, recording labels have padded classical music sales figures by mixing in the sales from Broadway showtune albums, but I doubt there are many of us within the classical music industry who would really consider the theme from "Cats" as part of our genre. 
Now comes Renee Fleming with her new album "Dark Horse" and Sting with "Symphonicities."  Do we invite them in?  My mind immediately says "yes" to Renee Fleming, because, well, she is Renee Fleming and she is "one of us," so therefore it has to be "classical." The same goes for Yo Yo Ma.   I'm not so sure about Sting, however.   Andrea Bocelli gets a "maybe" in my book.  Yes, he does sing opera, but I never thought he was actually that good at it.  I think his success grew out of his appeal to the non-classical music audience, so I am left feeling skeptical.

Mark O'Connor is another artist who leaves me confused.  I have always felt a little naughty and guilty for my attraction to his music.  Two things tend to help me justify him as an genuine "classical music" artist.  First, he composes works for full symphony orchestras.  (This tends to justify my inclusion of Sting into our club, too).  Writing a composition for a symphony that includes multiple movements which are tied together in some meaningful manner is no small feat.  Mark O'Connor's album "Midnight on the Water" also helped me welcome him into the pantheon of classical music composers.  While it still has pieces like "River Out Back", it also has lots of Caprices.  The word "Caprice" is derived from the Italian word "Cappricio" which was first used in 1665, according to Webster's dictionary.  Any music that has it's roots in the year 1665 has to be classical.

Then there are classical musicians like Nigel Kennedy and Nick Kendall (Time for Three) who can take hard core classical music (Vivaldi's Seasons and Bach's Concerto for Two Violins in d minor, respectively) and somehow make them seem like pop music.  Talk about total genre identification confusion.....

So, I have come up my own personal criteria for how to define what is classical music.
1) Who is performing it?  Did they spend their first 10 years of their career on stage at Carnegie Hall or in nightclubs?
2) Have they undergone the rigorous, grueling, intense, often demoralizing, formal training at a highly recognized school of music?  (Hey I put in my years in music boot camp, and I'm not letting anyone else in unless they have suffered as I have.)
3) Question #2 among classical musicians, invevitably leads to Question #3, which is "who is your teacher?"  If you don't understand this question, then you are not a classical musician and neither is your music.
4) Does the music make money?  If the answer is "yes", then questions 1, 2 and 3 are now irrelevant and you are welcome into the classical music genre.

If you have comments, please share!