The soundtrack album was released on Sept. 11, 2001, and, at the time, Botkin was doing temp work for the insurance company AON Corp. on the 105th floor of the World Trade Center's South Tower. She was a few minutes late that morning because she stopped to buy the disc at the Sam Goody store in the World Trade Center's mall.
Before she could get on the elevator, the first plane hit the tower, about 20 floors below AON's offices.
"What a fluke that was," she said. "I feel really lucky about it."
Botkin later received an autographed copy of the album and letter from Carey after she heard about it, but surviving the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks changed Botkin's life in more profound and long-lasting ways. She decided to marry her boyfriend and leave New York, after having spent two years there trying to patch together a living as a professional singer.
"I think it takes a special person to thrive in New York. For me, it sort of swallowed me up."
She returned to the Pittsburgh area and joined her father as a financial planner at Smith Barney in Upper St. Clair. But Botkin has never completely walked away from music. The 30-year-old has independently released three albums, the latest of which is a Christmas album, "Breath of Heaven."
Thanks to multi-tracking, Botkin handles all the voice work on the album, and is accompanied on some selections by Pittsburgh Symphony principal harpist Gretchen Van Hoesen and Mark Huggins, the symphony's associate concertmaster. The songs on "Breath of Heaven" range from "Ave Maria" to "Christmas Time is Here" from "A Charlie Brown Christmas."
She started recording it in February, not long after the tinsel and gifts from last Christmas were put away. "I don't think I ever got out of the Christmas spirit," she said. "All year long, I listened to myself all the time in the car to remind myself of the things I wanted to fix or changes I wanted to make."
While living in New York, Botkin could never afford to make any albums, but, in Pittsburgh, the studio time doesn't cost as much and she now has a day job to help pay for it. Her first was 2003's "An Angel's Christmas," which she followed in 2005 with "The Spirit Quartet." Botkin was tempted to follow "An Angel's Christmas" with another holiday album, but was discouraged by friends, who were concerned that she would be pigeonholed as a Christmas singer.
Along with recording, Botkin also performs in the Pittsburgh area with the Chatham Baroque period instrument ensemble and the University of Pittsburgh's Bach and Baroque group. She's scheduled to sing at St. Andrew's Church in Shadyside on Christmas Eve, and will appear on KDKA-TV's "Pittsburgh Today Live" on Christmas Day.
A native of McKeesport, Botkin built much of her life around a musical career. She graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan, a rigorous fine arts boarding school, and then majored in music at the University of Virginia. "I never wanted to do anything else," she explained.
"I always wanted to be a musician and my mother encouraged me ... It can be a fulfilling life, but financially it can be tough."
The calamity of 9/11 made scaling down her musical ambitions much easier, Botkin noted. "All of a sudden, that didn't seem that important anymore. I always thought (being a professional musician) would be the most important thing in the world to me. I didn't care what else happened. But then 9/11 happened ... 9/11 put everything in perspective for me."
Botkin isn't sure what her next album will be yet, though she's thinking about recording some children's music. "I have a good friend who has twins, and he says he plays my CDs when they're falling asleep."
For more information on Botkin and her music, go online to www. sarabotkin.com.