The 11-year-old violin and piano prodigy, Alma Deutscher, has already composed concertos and operas.

She started playing the violin and piano aged three, began writing music aged four, by seven she had penned a short opera, and now, aged 11, boasts a substantial violin concerto among her compositions. The British-born musical prodigy, Alma Deutscher, is being hailed as the next Mozart, and she already has some impressive admirers, including maestros Zubin Mehta, Sir Simon Rattle and Daniel Barenboim.

Many of her top advocates have commented on the maturity of her musical thinking, but when it comes to inspiration, Deutscher’s go-to source is wonderfully childish: skipping. “I love skipping with the wind blowing in my ears,” she told London’s Daily Telegraph. “I wave my skipping rope around and think of beautiful melodies and stories. Sometimes I hear concerts, people playing beautiful music, so I run in and write it down before I forget it. When I am in an improvising mood, melodies burst from my fingertips.”

Deutscher’s parents, Guy and Janie, both academics and amateur musicians, are baffled as to where her exceptional aptitude for music comes from. They...