Two New Conference Secretaries Join Sempre Committee
The Sempre Committee are delighted to welcome two new Conference Secretaries, Javier Rivas and Eleonora Savvidou. Their combined experience will be invaluable to the Sempre community, as they support both Sempre Events and Conferences in Association with Sempre.
Javier Rivas is a researcher, educator, and cultural manager whose work explores how sound expertise is constructed, debated, theorised, and transmitted within academic institutions. He holds a PhD in Music, Anthropology, and Education from King’s College London, where he developed an ethnography of higher music education and institutional sound studies in Catalonia. Javier teaches critical theory, cultural management, and contemporary music at KCL, and is also a Visiting Lecturer and Researcher at the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya (ESMUC).
Alongside his academic career, Javier is an experienced cultural organiser, managing the national charity Water City Music and the King’s Music Academy, KCL’s award-winning music outreach programme.
Eleonora Savvidou is a cellist, researcher and educator who studied at Oxford University and the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. During the 2026 – 2027 academic year she will be undertaking a residency with her award-winning quartet at Trinity Laban, supported by Philip Carne MBE. She has presented her work at several national and international conferences including the plenary conference of the Society for Musicology in Ireland, the Performance Studies Network International Conference and the International (Auto)biography Conference. In March 2026, she initiated and organised an international conference titled ‘Chamber music: synergies through time, places and spaces’.
Additionally, Eleonora is passionate about education and outreach work, and regularly leads workshops in primary and secondary schools. In future, Eleonora hopes to pursue doctoral studies in musicology.
Javier and Eleonora can be contacted through the [email protected] email address.