She didn’t get any lines, but Hanslip had her own artistic challenge: “They gave me ten days to learn the ‘Devil’s Trill’ sonata [by Tartini]!”

This past September, Hanslip received the Shakespeare Scholar-ship from the German Alfred Toepfer Foundation, for which she was nominated by Welsh baritone Bryn Terfel, a good friend. She’ll use the money to fund her lessons in Vienna with violinist Gerhard Schulz of the Alban Berg Quartet. Studying with Schulz has brought her closer to understanding the great German masters. Plus, she loves “the whole feeling of culture and the atmosphere” in Vienna, which in her case includes walking by Mozart’s house every day.

When she’s not performing, studying, or practicing (“I try to get in five to six hours a day”), Hanslip can be found exercising at her local gym (she particularly likes Bhangra/Bollywood-style dancing), instant messaging, reading, or listening to a mix of music on her iPod. Her eclectic play list includes UK house-music band the Basement Jaxx, an Oregon-based band named Pink Martini (which blends classical chamber, Cuban, and French film music), the Black Eyed Peas, Rat Pack alum Sammy Davis, Jr., classical violinists Nathan Milstein and Ida Haendel, and Pierre Fournier playing the Dvorák Cello Concerto.

The diminutive Hanslip is also a car fanatic, a passion she traces back to hours of looking out train and bus windows in Germany and counting the number of Mercedes-Benzes on the autobahn. The night before we spoke, she’d been at the launch of the new BMW 3 series (“beautiful, beautiful car”) and earlier in the year she’d attended a Formula One race with her father.

She is on her second Mini Cooper. Her first Mini was a write-off after a 40-ton truck slammed into it on the M25 motorway. “I got smashed in the face by the airbag cover, but other than that I was fine. Quite why I’m here, I’m not sure,” she remarks, adding dryly, “Minis are extremely well-built cars.”

If good fortune played a role in Hanslip’s surviving that car accident, she’s happy to spread the good fortune, regularly playing concerts for charity.

“I think it’s so important for me to give back. I especially love doing things with children,” she says, recalling her experience of playing

at London’s Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital.

“There was the most beautiful little girl called Elana, who was eight or nine and I played for her. She had a rare form of cancer.”

Two weeks after Hanslip played for her, Elana passed away. “To know that I made her happy is so special,” she says.

It seems that making people happy will remain an important part of Hanslip’s life as she develops both as a person and a musician, going far beyond the narrow stereotype of “former child prodigy.”