Sierra Hull first played the Grand Ole Opry stage at 11, invited by Alison Krauss, and she quickly became known as a bluegrass mandolin prodigy. She was celebrated, yet adrift. Stranded, even. What she felt at 22 was not what she felt at 12, and the music Sierra Hull was writing and playing at home was different from the music she was making on stages. "In some way, I was needing to run from the thing that everybody thought I was being," she says now, at 25. Now, after consulting with Krauss and with Béla Fleck (who says, "She plays the mandolin with a degree of refined elegance and freedom that few have achieved"), Alison Krauss, who has won more Grammy awards than any female artist in history, says of Sierra, "I think she’s endless. I don’t see any boundaries. Talent like hers is so rare, and I don’t think it stops." Pretty soon she's going to be acoustic music royalty