From GN South to Grammy prez

Anthony Oreilly

Great Neck native Neil Portnow said he usually doesn’t accept awards that are offered to him. 

As president of the Recording Academy, which helps organize the annual Grammy Music Awards, Portnow said it is “a matter of policy” that prevents he declines awards from other organizations. 

“When other charities, as wonderful as their work may be, ask me to be involved I usually have to decline,” he said in an interview with Great Neck News.

This summer Portnow will make an exception when he receives the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York’s annual Music Visionary of the Year Award on June 25 in New York City.

“It’s a great honor,” Portnow said. 

Portnow said he made the exception because the event is in his hometown and he supports the mission of the UJA-Federation of New York. 

“I think that they have an excellent mission and they carry it out with great expertise and experience,” he said.

Money raised during the event will go to support the UJA-Federation’s efforts to support music education classes and scholarships for disadvantaged children, according to Daniel Glass, vice chair of the UJA-Federation of New York’s Entertainment, Media & Communications Division.

Glass said the event is also an opportunity for people to get to meet music’s biggest names. 

“It’s the best networking event of the year,” Glass said. 

Glass said Portnow was picked as this year’s honoree for his work with the academy. 

Portnow, he said, has taken the Grammy’s to “being one of the biggest shows in the world.”

Glass also praised Portnow’s work as a philanthropist through the academy’s non-profit organizations MusicCares and Grammy U.

“It’s not just the one night of the Grammy’s,” Glass said. “It’s 365 days of being involved.” 

Despite being one of the biggest names in the music industry, Portnow said he almost chose a different career path. 

During his college days, he said he wanted to become a politician.

“I ironically wasn’t convinced that I could make a career or living out of [music],” Portnow said.

The passion for politics started, Portnow said, during his time as a student at Great Neck South High School where he was elected as the General Organization’s student body president. 

Portnow said he took that passion with him to George Washington University, where he was first elected as the school’s program director, which was responsible for booking musicians to perform at school events. 

“I actually booked a couple of acts before they broke out,” Portnow said. Those acts, he said, included Blood, Sweat and Tears and the Four Tops. 

Portnow was later elected as the university’s student body president. In the following year, he ran again on a platform that if he was voted in, his entire ticket would resign. 

“We got elected and we all did resign and put [the school] out of the student government business for a couple of years,” Portnow said.  

But Portnow said that, as well as other protests undertaken by the student body, made Portnow realize that he should look to a career outside of politics. 

“It made me rethink what I wanted to do,” he said. “I ultimately said I’m not sure this is for me.”

Portnow returned to Great Neck, where he and several of his friends started an independent music publishing company. 

The company worked with several small bands to get independent record deals, Portnow said, which led him to start working with main stream music companies.

“Having these projects that we did opened some doors for me with some top line companies,” he said. 

Portnow accepted a series of jobs at musical production companies in Manhattan and eventually Los Angeles, where he lives now. 

Some of his previous employers include EMI America, Clive Davis and working as a musical supervisor feature films at Paramount Pictures. 

Shortly after moving to Los Angeles, Portnow was elected to the academy’s local board of governors and national board of trustees, and ultimately was elected as the national secretary/treasurer.

The opportunity to become president came when the previous head of the academy left amidst what Portnow called “challenging times.”

“Once that change had been made clear, the academy determined to hire one of the major search firms,” Portnow said.

At the suggestion of his colleagues, Portnow threw his name into the race. 

“I figured why not,” he said. “It’s a job like no other.”

Portnow has held on to the position for 12 years and six years ago was promoted to president and CEO of the academy. 

Portnow said he still remembers growing up in Great Neck, and credits his love of music to his education at Great Neck South High School.

“I know people from high school who are still friends and we still talk about the influence of some of those teachers,” he said.

Portnow said he is now working on the group of performers he will bring with him to perform at the UJA-Federation’s award night. 

“It will be somewhat different from what it’s been,” he said.

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