Vanessa Mae

“Music is about the performance.”

“The stage is the best experience in the world. It's a great compliment to be able to share the music, because people can hear my album but they don't get to make the connection in the same way as when it's one-to-one.”

“But I don't think I've grown up to be a damaged adult.”

“I don't mind about the boos from the audience.”

“But then I hit my 20s and only made two albums, and now I live in a ski resort as a ski bum basically.”

“I started skiing around the same time as I began playing the piano, at around four, before moving to the violin at five.”

“In an ideal world, I'd spend every weekend at my home in Zermatt in Switzerland.”

“Beethoven and Beatles, Mozart and Michael Jackson, Paganini and Prince - I like them all.”

“I will be the Thai equivalent of Eddie the Eagle.”

“To even get to the Olympics, I have to qualify for the 2013 World Championships and the standard is high. I know I am always going to be a few points behind the top guys.”

“I could have taken the easy life and just done classical, but I felt very strongly about the album, my first pop album, the first time that I'd fused so many influences. I was very proud when it was in the charts in 25 countries at once.”

“For example, I loved English and history at school. I would have loved to have done a degree in either. But my Mom said I didn't have time for university.”

“All the time I'm changing as an artist and as a person.”

“Violin playing is a physical art with great traditions behind it.”

“But I still think it's mind over matter in the sense that if you're strong, you can combat anything.”

“But I don't mind, I'm a bit of a touring animal. When I'm on tour that is the greatest thrill for me, playing to a live audience.”

“People find it hard to understand how I can risk ruining my career as a musician by injuring myself on the slopes, but I've always been a tomboy.”

“Kids can be born with potential but unless it's encouraged - pushed, even - I don't think it will ever come to fruition.”

“When I hit my 20s, I took a chill pill and relaxed because throughout my teens I was churning out an album a year. It was a treadmill of work then recording, promoting and touring.”

“In winter I go skiing on Saturdays and Sundays when the slopes are quieter due to changeover day for tourists, and in summer I hike up into the mountains at sunset, just as the village is settling down to dinner.”