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

Music is about the performance.

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.

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

I've decided to make my main priority for the next two years not playing the violin, but training for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

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.

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