Let's face it, music-lovers in Oxfordshire have become spoilt. We've got some of the best new bands in the country, fine choirs and orchestras, and a clutch of premier league festivals offering the best in pop, rock, folk and dance. But every now and then something stunning occurs which takes your breath away. And, like all the best things in life, those rare moments of musical rapture are all the more startling when they are totally unexpected.

One such moment of serendipity came on Saturday night at the Henley Festival. Even by the standards of this extraordinarily diverse festival, the evening's bill was eclectic, featuring sets by legendary guitarists John Williams and John Etheridge; Mercury Music Prize-nominated contemporary jazzer Zoe Rahman; Korean drum-bashing; a full-on percussion-soaked procession by a Bahamian carnival band; camp covers by a fez-clad bunch of chancers called the Bikini Beach Band; and, more bizarrely still, a simultaneous performance of Italian swing music and pasta cooking - a gastro-instrumental fantasy of music, mayhem and mozzarella, dubbed Spaghetti Swing.

But it was the headline slot we were here to see - a gala performance by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the charismatic, even eccentric, Nicolae Moldoveanu, and accompanied by New Zealand soprano Hayley Westenra.

Operatic megastar Hayley, 21, took centre stage, in red ball gown, treating the crowd to a set which was unashamedly popular - including pieces from Lord of the Rings and Phantom of the Opera.

It was refreshingly accessible but the musicianship was exceptional, suiting this, thankfully, dry summer evening perfectly. And the crowd lapped it up.

Also enjoying the spectacle were those partying away on the flotilla of boats choking the river - many enjoying lavish dinners among candelabra and ice buckets - who sounded their horns in approval.

But the highpoint was a tender performance of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Pie Jesu by ten-year-old Moulsford Preparatory School pupil Callum Chamberlain. There was barely a dry eye in the field.

Until that is, the festival found its surreal form again, with an extraordinary, and eye-popping version of Ravel's Bolero - the CBSO accompanied by an all-girl percussion outfit called, appropriately, Drum Blondes, who came on stage one at a time, dressed in boiler suits and hard hats, to bash around car components suspended from racks.

This being Henley, though, it all made perfect sense.