Help Wanted: must be willing to time travel

An interesting article in the NYTimes on the Monteverdi Moment the musical world seems to be experiencing, (for which I unabashedly admit I feel envy toward all those who have access, leisure and cash flow to enjoy it...) (was that clause within spitting distance of being grammatical?)

I have always loved Monteverdi; I have been haphazardly working on a super-duper-simplification of the famous Vespers that my choir might be able to attempt; when as a kid I first heard that achingly beautiful duet from Poppea I actually described it to myself with the word "ravishing" even though I had only just learned it after doing my own etymological and sociological research after an elementary school teacher had rebuffed my question concerning the meaning of one of the words in the title of "The Rape of the Lock," (I liked the engravings, they were funny...) and I dimly came to understand the relationship between love, sex and the way beauty can hit you like a ton of bricks and didn't yet know "ravishing" was the performing arts critic's cliche of approbation...

But I Digress

Anyway, catch this excerpt:
The music directorship of St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice, one of the premier posts in the music world at the time, had fallen into decline after a series of ineffective maestros mismanaged the place and lost its sense of mission. In 1613 Monteverdi was beseeched to take charge. He did, with conditions.
He reorganized the operation from top to bottom, recruited excellent new players and singers, restocked the library and announced that all services in the future would offer the best of the old repertory with adventurous new works of the day, including many, of course, of his own.[emphasis mine] [Sounds like something you'd read, a want ad on an NPM or CMAA board or blog, no?] His conception of the job is still relevant. Monteverdi could name his salary at any orchestra or opera company today.

His "conception of the job?" Alas, the trouble is that it was not a "job" , Mr. Tommasini, it was a 'Ministry."

And though his conception of how to go about church music directorship is indeed very valid, in any age (though at a basilica, or cathedral, as opposed to orchestra or opera company, regardless of his skills and qualifications, naming his own salary? -- It's the Church, you should be proud to live and let your children live in vow-less poverty to serve her!) there are a few aspects of the "job" we've left out of the equation , and those requirements and aims are often, sadly, diametrically opposed to the ones you've stated, the appropriate ones....

(In deference to.... well, good fellowship and self-preservation, I shan't enumerate them.)