Young soprano mixes music with managing money
Singer Sara Botkin, of North Strabane, Washington County, will perform at 7 p.m. Sunday at Hiland Presbyterian Church in Ross. A soprano soloist who dreamed of a recording career, Sara Botkin followed a path taken by many musicians. Instead of returning to the Pittsburgh area where she had been raised, she went straight from her 1999 graduation from the University of Virginia to the storied music halls of New York City.
Two years later, her love of music would prove not only to be life-changing but also lifesaving. On her way to the 105th floor of the World Trade Center South Tower, where she worked as a financial analyst, Ms. Botkin chose to dawdle in the tower's concourse. It was the day her favorite artist, Mariah Carey, was releasing a new album, "Glitter".
"I'm a huge Mariah Carey fan. I always, always buy her music the morning it's released. I went to Sam Goody to buy that CD, which was why I was a little behind. I was waiting for my elevator when the first plane hit," she said. "When I saw people running, I did think, is this a bomb or something intentional? I thought about Oklahoma City and said, 'Wow, I wonder if I'm going to be hurt today.' "
Ms. Botkin was not hurt, but more than 100 of her co-workers at AON Corp. would perish as United Airlines Flight 175 crashed 20-some floors beneath them. The full impact of what had happened didn't dawn on her, she said, until she headed home on the subway. As her train emerged from the Manhattan tunnel onto the elevated tracks in Queens, she saw the two towers in flames.
One month later, Ms. Botkin was on her way back home to the Pittsburgh area, where both her music and her day job have flourished. She's recorded two CDs, including a Christmas album that proved to be one of the most popular at Borders stores in Pittsburgh. On Feb. 2, she joined her father at Smith Barney's office in Upper St. Clair, where she's a vice president.
On Sunday, she will perform a concert of spiritual and secular music at Hiland Presbyterian Church in Ross. Even though she had sung at legendary venues in New York City, she didn't record a CD until she came back and settled in North Strabane with her husband, Ovi Manciu. "That's when it all started to happen. I kept on saying, 'I'm going to make a CD, I'm going to make a CD.' That was always my goal," said Ms. Botkin, who grew up in McKeesport.
She attended Chartiers Valley High School for her sophomore year while her family lived in Collier, where her father was a golf administrator at the Club at Nevillewood. She graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, a boarding school for fine arts, and attended the University of Virginia, where she received a bachelor of arts in music.
"I moved to New York to pursue a music career but very quickly I realized it was very, very difficult," she said. "There's no chorus that's going to give me a pension, there's no choral ensemble that's going to give me a 401(k)." Enter stage right Lester Botkin, a senior vice president at Smith Barney who is Ms. Botkin's dad. "He always said, 'If you ever get tired of being a starving artist ...' "
Still, it was a fun ride. While in New York, Ms. Botkin performed with some of the nation's finest ensembles at Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall and the State Theater at Lincoln Center. As a member of The Douglas Frank Chorale, she won the Contemporary A Cappella Recording Award in 2001 for Best Classical Album.
Back here, she helped to raise $10,000 on WQED-FM by offering copies of her debut CD, "An Angel's Christmas". She performs regularly throughout the region and is the soprano soloist at Calvary Episcopal Church in Shadyside. Mixing music with money isn't easy, but she's tried. For music lovers who would doze at the first mention of time-laddered annuities, she's been known to enliven an investment seminar with a few songs.
Her upcoming performance at Hiland benefits North Hills Food Bank. It was arranged by church session member Kim Tillotson Fleming, president of Hefren-Tillotson, where Ms. Botkin and her father used to work. Ms. Fleming had remembered Ms. Botkin performing at the church a few years ago and suggested her to new music director James Grapes. He didn't need much convincing.
"She is an amazing talent when you listen to her CDs," Mr. Grapes said. "You listen to her, the bass and the alto, and say, 'That's her, my goodness she certainly has a range.' " Ms. Botkin said combining her love of music and an investment career has its advantages.
"It's a nice feeling to do music because you love it," she said, "not 'Let me take this gig so I can pay this bill.' The neatest thing about coming home has been I think 9/11 reminded everyone that you want to be closest to the people you love." (Post-Gazette)
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