The Ambassadors hosted a silent auction and cabaret at the Renaissance Hotel on Oct. 26. According to Kathleen Muloma, Ambassador alto section leader and senior, the fundraiser was successful.

“The cabaret is a silent auction at the same time,” Muloma said. “Each family donated auction items, and while the cabaret was going on, the guests went around and bid. They paid for a ticket, and that was their h’orderves and drinks.”

“The cabaret went really well,” performing arts teacher John Burlace said. “There were 25 or 30 soloists, and they all did a nice job with their songs. The group numbers went well, they raised a lot of money, and the parents were really happy.”

Muloma said there was an audition process for the cabaret.

“You’d come with your solo prepared or a duet,” she said. “You’d audition for the directors – one of them would play your accompaniment, and then they posted a list. The majority of those who auditioned made it. I sang “What’s New” by Linda Ronstadt, which is a jazz song. I also did a duet with my friend, and we did a song for a musical we saw called Pippin, and it was “On the Right Track,” so there was choreography with it that we did. It was fun. I love performing.”

According to Muloma, the money raised during the cabaret will go toward the choir department expenses this year.

“It’s going toward future competitions for the choir program, for our competition set and the costumes, all the different transportation costs, because we’re going to Chicago this year, and providing food for the rehearsals. (It is) just going towards our program so that we don’t have to drain the choir department’s funds too much,” she said.

Burlace said that the main focus for Ambassadors now is Holiday Spectacular, though several other events are coming up as well.

“Ambassadors are really juggling a few things right now. We’ve got got a Veterans Day performance coming up, and they’ve already got their music done for that. And now we’re full swing into Holiday (Spectacular) and also learning their competition show. So they’re in preparation mode for a bunch of things. There’s no immediate performances, but they’re all coming up,” he said.

According to Muloma, the Ambassadors are currently concentrating on learning choreography.

“We learned our Holiday (Spectacular) choreography piece, and now we’re going into the competition set,” she said. “I think the goal is to get everything choreographed and learned, and our director arranges and composes it himself, based on our songs. We are having a choreographer come in to help us learn more choreography then. Our goal is to have our entire competition set choreographed and learned before winter break, so we just clean from January to our competition.”

“(Holiday Spectacular is) going to be similar to what they’ve had in past years,” Burlace said. “All the choirs are involved, there’s going to be singing, dancing, and a lot of costuming. We’ve divided the show this year into seven sections about specific types of gifts. So the whole show will be centered around gifts and giving.”

Muloma said that working with the directors, who are new this year, has been a valuable experience.

“Your directors become either your mom or your uncle,” she said. “I know whatever they’re teaching, they are completely valid in their teaching. They know what they’re talking about as they have the education behind them to know exactly what they’re doing. It’s more now about trusting them. Now, I’m getting to the point where whatever they throw at us, I know they want the best for us.”

“It’s so great, because in life you’re not going to have the same director. You’re going to be going from different people, and you’re going to need to learn to be successful in each of those different environments,” Muloma said. “The seniors, especially, have the awesome opportunity of having those two different directors and adjusting to the new situations presented to us. I’m excited about this year, and they’re becoming a family to me, which is really important.”