Before Raine Stern was playing stages around the country, producing music in Los Angeles or turning chairs on national television, she was a New Glarus teenager slipping away on school nights to play blues and rock with musicians two and three times her age.

Then she would come back to New Glarus High School the next morning, sometimes a little tired, and resume being a student whose classmates did not always realize just how serious music had already become.

“I think I was surprising people whenever they found out,” Stern said. “At 15, 16 years old, I’m playing with guys that were much older up in Madison, playing blues and rock songs and taking solos and learning — kind of the school of hard knocks, or the school of life.”

Ten years after graduating from New Glarus High School in 2016, Stern’s unconventional musical education continues to pay dividends. She is now a singer-songwriter, guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, producer and music teacher living in Los Angeles, with a career that has included an appearance on NBC’s “The Voice,” performances around the country and an upcoming Iowa PBS television special.