Chef Eliza Gavin Presents The 2025 Music Maker Fundraiser Dinner Menu

Fundraiser tickets available now

On Thursday, September 11, we are hosting an evening of live music and dinner to support the Music Maker Foundation. The dinner will be held at a private, mountainside house in the San Juan Mountains of Telluride. Tickets for the dinner are on sale now, click here to purchase. $500 of each ticket benefits the Music Maker Foundation and can be tax-deductible as a charitable contribution.

The 2025 menu for the Music Maker Fundraiser Dinner is here! Chef Eliza Gavin, presents the menu for the event with Champagne and appetizers to kick off the evening while attendees interact with the musicians before a special performance from Earl "Guitar" Williams. Dinner with the artists to follow immediately after the performance.

Telluride Blues & Brews Festival Earl Guitar Williams

Meet Earl “Guitar” Williams

For a special night together in Telluride, we present to you a special artist, Earl “Guitar” Williams. He must have always known he’d be a blues guitarist, because, at the age of seven, he made his own guitar by using a cigar box, broomstick, and fishing cord. That was the beginning, and he has never looked back. He leaned in on his music education by hanging out at Gip’s place, a juke joint in his hometown of Bessemer, Alabama, soaking up influences from the musicians who plied the Chitlin’ circuit. As a member of the Music Maker Foundations Blues Revue, he provides guitar chops to a rotating band of players, each one contributing to the musical feast that pours from the stage. At the Salt and Pepper Roots Music Celebration in 2023, Earl represented the blues genre, a sweet little set captured by PBS for live broadcast. The blues, he says is music that taps into the deepest part of a person. “The slow blues … it can help you go deep inside and express your innermost feelings. If you’ve been hurt really bad, it’s good old crying music.” Earl not only styles onstage, but also keeps clients at his hair salon in Birmingham looking tight. While styling hair, he makes a connection with each client, folks he says are a source of inspiration for his songwriting. We’re proud to have this artist of both music and hairstyles play in our mountains.

Telluride Blues & Brews Festival - Chef Eliza Gavin

Meet Chef Eliza Gavin

Meet Chef Eliza, the restaurateur and award-winning chef of 221 South Oak in Telluride. Raised in Richmond, Virginia, Eliza ran her first kitchen while attending college. After graduation from the University of the South, Eliza moved to New Orleans hoping to expand her blossoming culinary career.

Her unique flavor palette reflects on experiences of growing up in the South, working at prestigious fine dining establishments in New Orleans and Napa Valley, attending Le Cordon Bleu in Paris France and from the Rocky Mountains.

After returning from France, Eliza worked on a cookbook before moving to Telluride. She then spent a winter working at 221 before she bought the restaurant in the autumn of 2000. Aside from owning her restaurant, Chef Eliza also earned a spot in Season 10’s Top Chef competition on Bravo. She has also competed on Beat Bobby Flay and Chopped. She has written 3 cookbooks, including an all vegetarian book named, Hold the Meat. Eliza has opened a fast casual restaurant in Telluride named LIZ, after her grandmother. LIZ serves healthy options at reasonable prices.

Telluride Blues & Brews Festival Fundraiser Dinner

Schedule

5:15 pm - Guests meet dinner host at San Miguel Courthouse
5:45 pm - Walk to dinner venue at a private location
5:45 - 7:15 pm - Welcome reception
- Champagne, passed appetizers, meet-and-greet with artists, welcome talk with Tim Duffy, Band plays
7:15 - 9:00 pm Three course dinner + dessert + coffee + digestifs

Fundraiser Dinner Tickets

Telluride Blues & Brews Festival Tim Duffy

Meet Tim Duffy

Timothy Duffy is a renowned photographer and founder of the Music Maker Relief Foundation. Timothy has been recording and photographing traditional artists in the South since the age of 16, when he became interested in ethnomusicology. After earning a BA from Friends World College and MA from the Curriculum in Folklore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Timothy and his wife Denise founded Music Maker Relief Foundation in 1994 to assist traditional musicians in need.

As a photographer he edited and took many photographs for Portraits and Songs from the Roots of America, and was the sole photographer for the nationally touring exhibitions: We Are the Music Makers! & Our Living Past. Both exhibits received support from the National Endowment for the Arts. Timothy Duffy’s photographs were published by 21st Editions in a monograph entitled BLUE in 2017 — followed by a monograph published by UNC Press in association with the New Orleans Museum of Art entitled Blue Muse: Timothy Duffy’s Southern Photographs in 2019. Works from Blue Muse premiered in a solo exhibition at the New Orleans Museum of Art in April 2019. His current project is Hanging Tree Guitars, a collaboration with sculptor and spiritual philosopher Freeman Vines, containing Timothy’s photography coupled with Vine’s philosophy.. Timothy’s work has been featured in TIME Lightbox as well as the NY Times LENS Blog.

About Music Maker Foundation

Music Maker is a 501(c)(3) that meets the day-to-day needs of the artists who create traditional American music, ensures their voices are heard, and gives all people access to our nation’s hidden musical treasures.

Learn more