Christiane Noll came back for all the Tony commotion (she was Ragtime’s award-contending Mother) and has stuck around to harmonize with her husband, James LaVerdiere—among others—at the Best of Fest salute to New York Musical Theater Festival (NYMF) June 21 at 8 PM at New World Stages (340 W. 5Oth). Since the premature demise of Ragtime on Broadway, Noll has been dispensing The Gift of Music with Julie Andrews in Los Angeles and London. “I think she sounds amazing,” Noll reports. The first half of the show is all Richard Rodgers, with Hart and with Hammerstein. The second half is a musical adaptation of a children’s book that Andrews wrote with her daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton, called "Simeon’s Gift." The composer for that was also the conductor, Ian Fraser. There are no immediate plans to give The Gift of Music to Broadway.

Next, Noll will hit the globe again, concertizing. “In Beijing, I’ll sing with Lang Lang, a brilliant Chinese pianist, then I’ll be in the Czech Republic—I’m all over the place.”

—Harry Haun