As she opens the door of her hotel room, a harassed-looking Nicola Benedetti confesses to feeling well and truly frazzled. The Scottish-born violinist got here less than an hour before and, running late, has wolfed down a room service meal in lightning fashion. She's still swallowing the last few bites as she ushers me inside, apologising for being so disorganised.

It feels rather incongruous to see Benedetti (22) in a state of semi-disarray, having grown so used to the image of her dressed up to the nines, playing in grand music halls and wowing the crowd with her inimitable style. Today, with an audience of one (make that two if you include her publicist sitting quietly in the corner) she is more relaxed, although that's not to say her steely focus has slipped. I'm curious about her clean-cut image. Can she really be so well behaved?

Benedetti gives a sheepish little nod. "I'm very boring – sorry," she says. What was the last wild thing she did? A long pause follows. "What's wild?" she says, wrinkling her nose. "I have been in Vienna, practising about six hours a day, occasionally going out for dinner, watching a few films. Actually, no, watching one film in a week."

She is certainly a tough cookie. Having been in the public eye since the age of 15, when her star first began to ascend, she has had to weather the scorn from so-called music purists who turned up their noses at her popularising classical music. Benedetti pulls a face, looking incredulous. "I have to laugh at that," she says, "What the hell can be bad about that? I'm playing good music and am serious about what I do."

Has she been hurt in the past by bad reviews? "If you get a bad review it is never pleasant," she says, with a little shrug. "You have to develop an unbelievable resilience and belief in what you are doing. It doesn't mean it's not upsetting, but the people who survive are the ones who see their vision as the most important thing. I have the belief in my future and musical ability to push these things aside."

Benedetti is the youngest daughter of millionaire businessman Gio and his wife Francesca. She started playing the violin aged four, famously crying throughout her first lesson. At nine, her budding talent was spotted by the great violinist and conductor Yehudi Menuhin, who invited her to apply for his school for gifted musicians in Surrey. When he died in 1999, Benedetti was chosen to play at Menuhin's funeral and memorial concert.

Aged 15, she left the school – against the wishes of her parents and teachers – to devote all of her time to playing the violin. Studying at the Royal College of Music in London, she practised at least six or seven hours a day. A year later she won the BBC Young Musician of the Year 2004 playing Szymanowski's First Violin Concerto and picked up a stg£1m, six-album deal with Deutsche Grammophon. Since then she has racked up a prodigious number of honours and accolades, among them performing at Glastonbury, accompanying top orchestras across the world including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic, and scooping a classical Brit Award.

But Benedetti blanches at the notion of being labelled a celebrity. "No way," she says, her voice a barely audible whisper. "Most celebrity culture is completely ludicrous. When people are celebrated for being the best at something, it's a wonderful thing. When they are celebrated for having been on TV, that's a scary, terrible thing." Isn't the world of classical music becoming more glamorous, though? "There are a lot of women playing now – and also a lot of attractive women," she says. Asked if she herself feels pressure to look as well as sound good, Benedetti gives a short sigh, before grinning: "More from my mum saying, 'Make sure you wash your hair often enough'. I turn up to rehearsals wearing whatever I feel comfortable in. To care an awful lot about how you look takes a lot of time and I just don't have that time."

Still, I'm curious as to whether starting out, Benedetti felt she perhaps didn't get the critical acclaim she deserved because of a preoccupation some people had with her looks. She gives another little shrug. "Definitely not so much because of my looks. That's far too specific," she says. "I would say, though, maybe because of my sudden enforced popularity after the Young Musician of the Year, I think there were some concerts I did that were definitely reviewed unfairly, but I can also understand why. I was getting all this sudden attention."

Starting out, Benedetti was hailed by many as the "next Vanessa Mae" – the British violinist who rose to fame in the '90s for her pop-edged playing style – a comparison which never fails to get her hackles up. These days up-and-coming violinists are being compared in their droves to Benedetti, so how does she feel about people trying to fit into her mould? "Oh, I'm quite good at keeping out of what's said generally," she says, smiling. "I'd like to think I set an OK example. It's something people have to do, though, put labels on people to help other people understand who they are. Me being compared to Vanessa Mae is one of the most ridiculous. She has nothing to do with what I do – and vice versa – apart from we both play the violin."

Mae famously appeared in a music video wearing a wet T-shirt. It's difficult to imagine Benedetti doing anything so risque – or crass. Is it true she was approached by a lads' magazine to do an adult glamour shoot? "I was asked to do something, I can't remember what it was now," she says, deliberately vague. "It was so ridiculous the person who took the call about it only told me a couple of months later."

Growing up, it wasn't uncommon for Benedetti to stay indoors on family holidays practising her violin while everyone else was down on the beach. Doesn't she ever get frustrated? A palpable sigh creeps into her voice. "I never get frustrated," she says. "What do you mean, frustrated, like I haven't lived or something? I like having structure to my life and discipline. I would get even more frustrated if I didn't have that constant stimulation."

Equally, she is on the defensive when it is suggested her absorption in music may have held her back from other areas of life. "I don't really understand how life is not enjoyable if you have a daily discipline," she says. "I think that is only a positive thing. I look at a lot of young people who don't have anything physical to do because they buy all their food ready-made, they don't have anything really to do at home and have too much time on their hands. I think it's the most miserable teenagers have ever been. As humans we are made to have to do something every day."

Nicola Benedetti performs with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra on 27 October at the National Concert Hall, Dublin