Staff
Matthew Covey, Executive Director
Covey has devoted his professional career to helping artists build bridges between international communities. Following his studies in literature and music (BA Oberlin College) and post-colonial theory (MA UCD Ireland), Covey moved to Slovakia where he co-founded the critically acclaimed US/Slovak indie-rock band Skulpey. After relocations to Dublin and then New York, Covey worked as a festival talent-buyer before running Knitting Factory Records’ Amsterdam booking agency. In 1998 he co-launched Tamizdat and managed its Prague operation for three years before returning to New York to become the manager of Grammy Award winning band, The Klezmatics. Through the early 2000s, U.S. visa policy became an increasing impediment to international culture in the U.S., inspiring Covey attended law school (JD NY Law School) to further Tamizdat’s work facilitating international cultural mobility. He launched Tamizdat’s affiliated law firm, CoveyLaw, in 2015, and is the U.S.’s leading authority and advocate for arts immigration. Covey is is admitted to the New York Bar, and is also president of Howard Zinn’s Voices of a People’s History of the United States.
Covey has presented and chaired sessions on artist mobility issues at numerous conferences, including Alliance of Artist Communities (St. Paul), Amsterdam Dance Event (Amsterdam), APAP (New York), Arts Midwest (Minneapolis), CMJ (New York), Edinburgh Fringe (Edinburgh), Eurosonic (Groningen), FimPro (Guadalajara), Focus Wales (Wrexham), Folk Alliance (Kansas City), Grantmakers in the Arts (Denver), Great Escape (Brighton), HWCH (Dublin), IndieWeek (New York), ISPA (New York) Ireland Music Week (Dublin), M4Music (Zürich), MICC (Montreal), MaMA (Paris), Mundial Montreal (Montreal), New Colossus (New York), NXNE (Toronto), Output Belfast (Belfast), Palestine Music Expo (Ramallah), Reeperbahn (Hamburg), Spring Break (Poznan), SXSW (Austin), Western Arts Alliance (Los Angeles), WOMEX (Copenhagen, Thessaloniki, Santiago De Compostela, Cardiff, Budapest, Las Palmas, Tampere), Winter Jazz (New York), and YouBloom (Dublin).
Mars Dietz, General Manager
Mars Dietz is an interdisciplinary artist with over ten years performing arts experience in North America and Western Europe. While originally from Brooklyn, Mars lived much of their life abroad in Germany working as a solo sound artist, musician, and sound designer for stage works. Mars knows first-hand how critically transformative it can be for artists, self-employed persons, and immigrants more broadly to have support and advocacy as they live and work across borders. Mars is proud to be the current General Manager of Tamizdat.
Liz Moller, Legal Fellow & Counsel
Liz Moller has a strong commitment to the performing arts and believes that cross-cultural exchange in the performing arts is critical to international civil society in all countries, as underscored by her studies and work in Berlin (Freie Universitaet; Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung), in Tbilisi (Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association), and at SIPA. She also served in a volunteer advisory capacity on children’s programming to the President at The Harlem School of the Arts. In 1998 Liz was awarded a Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst, and while in law school she received grants to work as an intern at the Institute for the Study of International Migration (Georgetown University) and Amnesty International. After law school she practiced for seven years as a tax attorney, while also working successfully on various pro bono cases, including providing pro bono immigration assistance to the City Bar Justice Center in collaboration with the Immigrant Women and Children Project. Liz is also an Of Counsel attorney for state and federal tax matters with CoveyLaw. In addition to her work in law, policy, and the arts, Liz writes fiction, which has been published in the literary journal Lalitamba (2016) and is forthcoming in the anthology, WAVES: A Confluence of Women’s Voices. Liz holds an A.B. in English, with a Certificate in Germanic Languages and Literatures, from Princeton University, an M.I.A. from Columbia University – SIPA, and a J.D. from New York University School of Law.
Rachel Switlick, SHIM:NYC Artist Liaison & Advocate
Rachel Switlick is the current Artist Liaison & Advocate for SHIM: NYC. She holds her MA in Performance & Culture from Goldsmiths College, University of London. Her graduate work culminated in an examination of the impact of US Immigration policies and procedures on the creative culture of New York City. Her undergraduate studies at The Ohio State University (BA in English and BFA in Dance) were focused on interdisciplinary collaboration and a study of methods of communication amongst artists. Before joining the SHIM: NYC team, Rachel worked in theatre production for various performances, including Insight International’s tour of Uniform Justice and the TÉA Creative and Private Theatre’s co-production of Rocco, Chelsea, Adriana, Sean, Claudia, Gianna, Alex. As an advocate for social justice encouraged by the belief that artistic freedom is essential to a fair and just society, Rachel focuses her efforts on finding ways to support artists of all backgrounds. Outside of this work, Rachel currently spends her time empowering others as a Krav Maga instructor and debate coach.
AVAIL Legal Fellows
bios to come
Boo Froebel, Consulting Producer
A producer, curator, and creative consultant, Froebel works with various performing artists and organizations. She consults for Bloomberg Philanthropies’ AIM/Arts Innovation & Management program; produces David Neumann and Marcella Murray’s performance projects for Advanced Beginner Group; and regularly produces events and festivals such as the NYC FREE Festival at Little Island, the Onassis Festival, and ContraBanned: #MusicUnites at SXSW, a Tamizdat-produced showcase of artists from the Banned Countries. Previously, Froebel served as Producer of Lincoln Center Festival; Co Executive Director of the Imagine Festival of Arts, Issues & Ideas (OBIE Award); Curator/Producer of live art at the Whitney Museum; and Artistic Director of Galapagos Art Space (OBIE Award). A performance generalist, Froebel has nominated and served on panels for numerous foundations and cultural councils including Creative Capital (also program officer), the CalArts Alpert Award, US Artists International, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the Lambent Foundation, the French Cultural Services, and the MAP Fund. She is a member of The Blacksmiths collective and sits on the Boards of the Poetry Project and Movement Research.
Tamizdat Board
Matthew Covey
Matthew Covey is an immigration attorney, cultural advocate, musician, and music industry professional. He is a founder of Tamizdat, holds a J.D. from New York Law, an M.A. focusing on post colonial literary theory from University College Dublin, a B.A. in English from Oberlin College, and is admitted to the New York Bar.
Rigdzin Pema Collins
Rigdzin Pema Collins is a musician based in the New York City area. She is also an Associate Program Officer at the Internet Society Foundation—an international organization dedicated to promoting an Internet that is open, globally-connected, secure, and trustworthy. In this role she manages programs that address technical and social issues related to the digital divide and promote digital inclusivity and accessibility for all. Her background is in cultural administration, philanthropy, and social work. Prior to her current role, she managed COVID-19 Emergency Aid and designed additional trust-based funding and social protection programs for artists at the Dramatists Guild Foundation. She has worked for public media and cultural organizations, including: American Public Media/MPR (“Live from Here with Chris Thile”), Sesame Workshop (“Sesame Street”), the Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and Tamizdat. Rigdzin holds a M.S. in Social Work/Minor in Law from Columbia University and a B.F.A. from the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music. She is currently pursuing graduate studies in International Development through SOAS University of London.
Madeline Gomez, President
Madeline Gomez is a Nashville-based attorney with years of experience in both policy and complex civil litigation in both state and federal court. She is currently State Policy Counsel at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, where she advises on policy and advocacy in all fifty states. Madeline previously served as an associate at a leading national plaintiff-side law firm, a law clerk for the Hon. Martha Craig Daughtrey on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and as a fellow at the Center for Reproductive Rights and the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice. Prior to law school, Madeline worked as a Senior Case Manager at Tamizdat. She holds a B.A. in Sociology and Public Policy from New York University and a J.D. from Columbia Law School.
Marissa Mandel, Treasurer
Marissa Mandel began her professional life working in the membership department of ASCAP after studying photography and art history at The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Tufts University. While there, she became a fan and friend of the band Skulpey, whose members went on to found Tamizdat. In 1999, she began practicing residential and commercial landscape design in NY state, with a specialty in native plants. After a move back to her native Los Angeles, she co-founded Bar & Garden, the first wine shop in the city fully devoted to natural wine and small-batch spirits. Today she splits her time between the east and west coasts and pursues her love of design, ceramics and photography.
Patrick O’Donnell
Beginning in the mid-1990s, Patrick O’Donnell founded and ran the independent record label Škoda Records, which featured artists from the Czech and Slovak Republics. He is an attorney, and is currently involved in music and film projects.
Ali Sachedina, Secretary
Ali Sachedina is VP, General Counsel of Legal & Business Affairs of JioSaavn, one South Asia’s largest digital music streaming services with 55 million records under license in 15 languages, and 140 million monthly active users. Based in New York and Mumbai, Ali oversees all of JioSaavn’s legal and regulatory affairs worldwide. Ali’s responsibilities include the development and implementation of all of JioSaavn’s risk mitigation and compliance processes, the management of data privacy and cybersecurity initiatives, the negotiation of complex content licensing and original content agreements, while providing strategic advice to JioSaavn’s management on wide spectrum of JioSaavn’s business development activities. Ali is a graduate of the University of Virginia (B.A. Religion & Middle East Studies, Minor in Persian Language and Literature) and the University of Richmond School of Law.