South Africa is suffering from a poor image.

Its economy is strike-ridden, ratings agencies have downgraded it and its politics are corrupt. Its growth rate has dropped below the rest of Africa, and its soccer team couldn’t make it to the FIFA World Cup.

But South Africa has its youth orchestra, said columnist Allister Sparks in a BusinessDayLive column.

If President Jacob Zuma wants good stories about South Africa, he should encourage the South African Department of Arts and Culture to give greater support to the country’s youth orchestra, known by its acronym Miagi (Music is a Great Investment), which just completed a successful month-long European tour, Sparks said.

The orchestra’s 77 musicians got a 15-minute standing ovation in the Berlin Philharmonic Hall, one of 11 concerts they performed around Europe for audiences considered among the most discerning in the world.

The musicians in their teens and early 20s have been a travelling sensation, Sparks said. They have been acclaimed by critics everywhere in terms verging on the ecstatic.

“A Revolution in the Concert Hall,” ran a headline in the German newspaper, Tages Spiegel, after their first concert.

After leaving the stage, the orchestra continued playing for a half hour in the foyer while hundreds of audience members stayed and danced. “I have never seen anything like it,” wrote an audience member in a letter to his newspaper.

Why is South Africa’s youth orchestra such a sensation in culturally sophisticated Europe?

Three reason, Sparks said. First, because they are different from the usual classical diet to which these audiences are accustomed.

They have a youthful enthusiasm and vitality that jolts staid audiences out of their seats. There is an African — or maybe a specifically South African — joyfulness to them. They enjoy what they are doing and it shows. Their conductors interact not only with the musicians but with the audiences, joking with them.

Second, their music is different. Although they are technically proficient in performing classics, as they showed in their version of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Suite for Jazz Orchestra No2, what makes them special is that they are presenting a new and specifically South African musical genre. This is a classically trained orchestra that is is infusing elements of African jazz and traditional forms into new compositions that are vibrant and exciting. It is the emergence of a new form of classical music and is being recognised as such by these highly discerning audiences, Sparks said.

Third, they made an impact abroad because the orchestra captures the essence of the rainbow nation and evoked the magic of Nelson Mandela that captivated the world 20 years ago. The concert tour celebrated 20 years of South African freedom. The Amsterdam concert was held on Mandela’s birthday.

“We are a family,” conductor-composer Tshepo Tsotetsi tells everyone. Sparks, who attended concerts on the tour, said this came as a breath of fresh air to audiences in a troubled Europe experiencing its own nationalistic tensions.

The Miagi tour presented a very different image of South Africa to the daily news reports of strikes, protests, crime, unemployment and a growing disillusionment with the fruits of freedom.