24 Facts About Eva Palmer-Sikelianos

Eva Palmer-Sikelianos was both inspired by or inspired the likes of dancers Isadora Duncan and Ted Shawn, the French literary great Colette, the poet and author Natalie Barney and the actress Sarah Bernhardt.

Eva Palmer-Sikelianos would go on to marry Angelos Sikelianos, a Greek poet and playwright.

Eva Palmer-Sikelianos was one of five children in a family of eclectic intellectuals and gifted artists.

Eva Palmer-Sikelianos's father facilitated thoughtful and amiable discussions of politics, religion and morality.

Eva Palmer-Sikelianos's father died in the summer of 1888 of appendicitis.

Eva Palmer-Sikelianos's brother was a musical prodigy and could at a young age play at the piano most all of the works of renowned composers.

Eva Palmer-Sikelianos's father established a short-lived experimental school called the Van Taube School.

Eva Palmer-Sikelianos herself was not enrolled but recalls its open format that encouraged creative minds to explore without a rigid curriculum.

Eva Palmer-Sikelianos left the school before completing a degree, choosing rather to join her brother Palmer Jr.

Eva Palmer-Sikelianos was unwilling to forgo her friendship with Barney despite the opportunity.

Eva Palmer-Sikelianos wished to learn more and to meet Sikelianos herself.

Eva Palmer-Sikelianos shared with her his poetry and they discussed in further depth the Delphic Idea.

Eva Palmer-Sikelianos would begin studying Greek Ecclesiastical music and notation under Konstantinos Psachos, at the time named by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople as Master Teacher of Music of the Great Church of Christ.

However, the money needed for the conduct of the Delphic Festivals were many and there is need for new resources, so Eva Palmer-Sikelianos is obliged to return home.

Eva Palmer-Sikelianos had become successively Daughter, Wife and Sister, and now had reached the highest stage of this unique development: she became the Mother, who from afar tries to relieve her son of the final course to fulfill the "great longing", while she is alone and mourning.

Eva Palmer-Sikelianos felt that the theater production necessitated an authentic representation and to deviate from the authenticity would elicit an inaccurate production of the play and the overall message of the Delphic Festival would be marred.

Eva Palmer-Sikelianos was asked to lecture at various schools, colleges and universities and wrote several papers on the topics embodied in the festival and the Delphic Idea.

Eva Palmer-Sikelianos was asked to stay on and teach at Yale University the Greek choruses she had directed in Prometheus Bound.

Eva Palmer-Sikelianos turned down the offer however, feeling she would be unable to teach such things in an authentic and sustaining manner.

Eva Palmer-Sikelianos's concerns regarding debt still owed from the first festival lend evidence to the unlikelihood she had sufficient funds herself to pay for all the costs of a second festival.

Eva Palmer-Sikelianos was given more of a free hand to decide upon the particulars of the production than before and Psachos and Palmer disagreed on the musical elements of the play.

Eva Palmer-Sikelianos was invited to join the Federal Theater Project in New York, a New Deal program to employ out-of-work artists, writers and directors.

Eva Palmer-Sikelianos maintained correspondence with her various friends and family, read and wrote until she recovered and was well enough again to pursue more active interests.

Eva Palmer-Sikelianos began writing her autobiography in 1938 and would continue to do so on and off again through 1948.