Don't let this year's performances become next year's missing history.

The Problem Every Director Already Knows

Every year, concerts disappear.

Programs get thrown away. The livestream link dies. The department website gets rebuilt and the recordings don't make the move. Graduating seniors leave campus without any record of the best work of their college careers — the premiere they anchored, the tour program, the spring concert that finally came together.

There's also a specific legal reason the recordings come down. A livestream is covered by your institution's performance licenses. A permanent on-demand replay is not — it requires a separate synchronization license for every copyrighted work on the program. No department has the bandwidth to clear dozens of works each semester, so the safe default everywhere is the same: no replays.

Not because nobody cared. Because nobody owned permanent preservation — and the licensing burden made owning it impractical. The default outcome, at nearly every institution, is loss.

The Founding Pilot

Deliberately simple. Deliberately boring.

• Free. No budget transfer, no vendor registration, no procurement process.
• No contract beyond a one-page MOU your department reviews and signs directly.
• Limited to public-domain and faculty/student-composed works — repertoire that is already clean, so there is no licensing question to answer.
• You decide what gets archived. Nothing is published without your selection.
• Your program keeps full ownership of every recording; we hold only a revocable permission to host it.
• Withdraw at any time with one email. Recordings come down within 14 days, or sooner.
• Your feedback shapes the archive's standards before public launch.

How We Solve It

In phases. Not promises.

1. Phase I — Archive what is already clean. (Now)Public-domain works, and pieces composed by your students and faculty. No licensing question exists, so nothing stands between a recording and its permanent home.
2. Phase II — Standardize clearance.With legal counsel and our founding directors, build one repeatable permission process with educational music publishers — so cleared contemporary repertoire can join the archive without each department negotiating alone.
3. Phase III — The full program.The goal: a streamlined sync path that lets an entire concert be archived as easily as it was streamed.

We publish no dates we can't keep. Each phase begins when the previous one is proven — and founding directors see the progress firsthand.

See It Working

This is the actual platform — not screenshots.

Every applicant receives a live walkthrough built around their own program.

Why I Built This

In 2008, my choir won a state championship. Years later I went looking for a recording. None exists — anywhere. That realization became The Rostrum. I grew up in a musical family and sang competitively, and I built this platform myself, nights and weekends, while working full-time. I'm not trying to build another licensing platform. I'm trying to make sure remarkable performances aren't lost forever — and the directors who join first aren't customers. They're founders. — Stuart Nelsen, Founder, The Rostrum · stuart@therostrum.org

Founding Directors Govern the Platform

Incentives, aligned in writing

• Permanent governance voteFounding directors will always have representation in how the archive is run. Not advisory in name only — a standing vote.
• Direct input into archive standardsWhat gets preserved, how performances are credited, how programs are represented.
• Policies shaped before launchThe rules are written with the founding cohort, not announced to it.

The Founding Fifty

Fifty programs. Five regions. Every tier.

West

10 slots

Southwest

10 slots

Midwest

10 slots

Southeast

10 slots

Northeast

10 slots

• 10
  Tier I — Flagship & ConservatoryCapped so prestige can't dominate a merit-first archive.
• 12
  Tier II — Regional Public UniversitiesThe backbone of collegiate music — where most student musicians actually study.
• 12
  Tier III — Private & Liberal Arts CollegesSmall programs, outsized artistry, and the least preservation infrastructure.
• 10
  Tier IV — Faith-Based InstitutionsHome to some of the country's oldest continuous choral traditions.
• 6
  Tier V — Community & Two-Year CollegesThe most overlooked performances are the most at risk of being lost.

The caps aren't marketing. Founding directors govern this archive permanently — and a governing body drawn from one tier, or one coast, would not represent collegiate music. This one will. No region holds more than ten seats; no tier crowds out another.

Exactly What Happens Next

Nothing hidden

1. You apply belowTakes about 45 seconds. A pilot overview and sample MOU arrive by email within a minute.
2. A 20-minute callYour ensembles, your repertoire, and a live walkthrough. No pitch.
3. Repertoire eligibility reviewWe confirm together which works fit the pilot's clean-rights scope.
4. Sign the one-page MOUFree, revocable, no procurement.
5. Select your first recordingsYou choose. The pilot begins.

Preserve your program's work — permanently.