ILMA Compoundings June 2019 - 40

PORTRAIT
Brenda Gillinson
Director of Communications, ILMA

"Karma is real, baby!
But love trumps karma."

teaching dance in universities, I dove in full-time as a manager
and publicist for classical musicians. I like to think my work
helped one of my clients win his first Grammy (Best Soloist
with Orchestra) after 30 years in the business. A great thrill of
my life was sitting with him at the Grammy Awards in Radio
City Music Hall and hearing his name called as winner.
"As I've gotten older, my dance experience has led very naturally to becoming a yoga practitioner and teacher. I teach
Hatha and Restorative Yoga, plus meditation at a studio in
Falls Church, Virginia. And I've also begun teaching a yoga
class at ILMA meetings!"

OVERCOMING BIGOTRY
A STORIED PATH TO ILMA
"I cut my communications teeth working for a firm in New
York City, doing publicity, writing press releases, stories and
biographies, and managing the careers of some of the world's
greatest classical musicians of the time. That also included
work for some stellar events, like the New York Metropolitan
Museum of Art concert series. When I married, I left New York
for Virginia, where my husband, Dave, grew up after emigrating from the U.K. (he was born in London). A friend clued
me in to the association world, and I landed a job in 2000 as
programs and membership director for a trade association
before coming to ILMA."

BERLIN BEFORE THE WALL CAME DOWN
"I was in Berlin to attend the premiere of an opera written by
one of the clients of the firm I worked for in New York. It was
exactly one year before the wall came down. So, I was able to
experience the stark contrast between the East and West sides
of that city before the change. Freedom is a powerful thing."

MOMENTS OF MUSIC, MOVEMENT AND MEDITATION
"My life interests, passions and accomplishments have been
quite eclectic. I'm an award-winning songwriter. My husband
Dave and I were winners in the Billboard International Song
Contest, one of 33 out of thousands of entries. We've recorded
two albums, both released on CD. I've sung in a lot of different
places, including the Palais des Congrés in Paris.
"I was also a serious dancer, studying in New York. Those
years in New York were some of the richest of my life. I was accepted into Columbia University's master's program for dance
education. But after deciding I didn't want to pursue a career

JUNE 2019

| COMPOUNDINGS | ILMA.ORG

"My parents were a 'mixed' marriage - i.e., my father was Jewish and my mother was Catholic, born and raised in Northern
Ireland. I guess you could say she was a 'war bride,' since they
met at the beginning of World War II, when she was in the British Army and my father was in the U.S. Army, both stationed
in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland. At the time they married in
the late 1940s, it was unusual to be of different religions. We
had neighbors who were bigoted. Our nextdoor-neighbor
family didn't like a Jew and a foreigner living next door. They
staged various 'attacks' on my family over the years we lived
there. That experience certainly shaped who I am as an adult.
In a civil society, we need to practice tolerance, but I can't
tolerate bigotry or bullying of any type."

CARING FOR AND COMFORTING OTHERS
"I'm a member of the clergy for my religion, Eckankar, known
as the path of spiritual freedom. I have performed wedding
ceremonies and memorial services. Most memorable was a
service I conducted for a 2-month-old little girl. She and her
brother were preemie twins. He managed to hold on, but she
didn't make it. What helped the family accept her passing was
knowing that she had come to be with them for that brief time
just to bring them together, through love, to heal from several
longtime rifts among family members."

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ILMA Compoundings June 2019

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