When Neil Gillis was a student in Sachem he embraced the music program and vice versa. He did everything from playing in the pit band to performing with the marching band. Orchestra, jazz band, you name it. If he could get his hands on an instrument, he was there.
By the time he graduated from Sachem in 1980 it was a no brainer that he would spend his life in the music business. It was off to Hofstra to originally major in music education, but he eventually switched to music and business.
It all worked out. After college he got a job in the international department of Broadcast Music, Inc. In 1990 he moved to Los Angeles to take a job with Warner Brothers. What he thought would be an experiment running their copyright division, wound up being a major turning point in his career and he spent 11 years in Los Angeles and another six back in New York.
He was a music publisher and a high-level music executive with a say on everything from Warner Brothers’ involvement in cartoons, television, and more.
“It was an education that I could not have paid for,” he said.
Gillis moved back to New York in 2001 in more of a creative role as Senior Vice President of Creative Music Solutions with Warner Brothers. After six years in that position, working with everyone from Led Zeppelin to corporate deals with Cadillac, Coors Light and movies like “Schreck,” it was on to the next step again for Gillis.
Gillis was also president of S1 Songs America and its predecessor Dimensional Music Publishing. He was also East Coast GM of Concord Music Group. He is still a composer, classically trained French horn player and jazz guitarist. Today he is the President of Round Hill Music in New York City.
He still credits Sachem for his foundation in the music business.
“I got to try lots of different things from playing in the pit as theater musician to playing in jazz band to studying real music theory in high school,” he said. “It certainly gave me a little bit more of a broader view. Sachem helped with that.”
-Words by Chris R. Vaccaro