Maggie Adamson has a simple philosophy: if something looks like fun, try it.

Later this summer the 21-year-old Royal Conservatoire of Scotland student will be competing in solo sailing at the Fireball World championships in Slovenia and at the NatWest Island Games in Bermuda. Before that, however, she has a pair of prestigious engagements in the guise for which she's become rather more familiar to audiences at home: Shetland fiddler.

So impressed was American old-time singer and multi-instrumentalist Bruce Molsky when he heard Adamson in Shetland recently that he has invited her to open his Edinburgh concert this weekend with her duo partner, guitarist Brian Nicholson. The duo will also be appearing at the inaugural Edinburgh Guitar and Music Festival, supporting Donnie Munro.

There's Adamson family history in neither sailing nor fiddling, although Maggie's grandfather used to go out fishing in his boat. She just liked the look of what she saw and went for it in both instances, and she has the distinction of winning the Glenfiddich Fiddle Championships, the championship of champions, two years in succession.

"You can hardly miss the fiddle in Shetland," she says. "And when I was eight I saw all these people playing. I liked the sound and I liked the tunes and I just thought, I want to be one of these people. So my mum bought me a fiddle and I just seemed to take to it."

Within a few months she was playing onstage with another 40 fiddlers. "You couldn't hear me but it got me comfortable with the idea of playing in front of an audience," she says. Almost from the start she was showing an aptitude for different playing styles, studying for her classical grades while learning the Shetland style with Alan Gifford, whose son Andrew plays with leading Shetland band Fiddlers' Bid.

"I've always enjoyed different kinds of music," she says, "and I find that the traditional and classical styles complement each other. If you listen to Scott Skinner, there was a lot of classical technique in his playing as well as the strathspey style."

In her early teens Adamson joined the Swing Fiddles, playing jazz.When the other girls in the group, all a bit older, went off to university, she and guitarist Brian Nicholson were all that was left. It's been a rewarding partnership. They made their first disc when Adamson was 15 and there have been a further three releases. When Adamson moved to Glasgow from the former crofting village of Fladdabister to study, she found it not so much a culture shock as a relief to be able to play and get home the same night.

Taking the RCS's classical music course rather than Scottish music has allowed her to keep her options open for the future. She enjoys orchestral work as her gigs with Nicholson.

"I just want to play," she says. "I don't want to tie myself down to any particular style. That's why the duo with Brian works so well: we don't always agree about a tune's merits but when we find something we both enjoy we work on it until we find a way of playing it that suits us."

Maggie Adamson and Brian Nicholson appear with Bruce Molsky at the Queen's Hall, Edinburgh, on Friday and with Donnie Munro at Edinburgh Corn Exchange on Monday.