Whether performing in front of an audience of more than 10,000 or just a few dozen, Stephanie Schneiderman said she is always excited to be on stage.

“I love both for different reasons,” she said. “Smaller venues feel like an intimate conversation between the audience and artist. It’s easy to get personal, tell stories and open up a bit more and there’s something so special about that.”

Schneiderman got a kickstart to her solo career by performing at Lilith Fair, a traveling music festival founded the late 1990s by Canadian Grammy-winner Sarah McLachlan.

“It was exhilarating to be part of such a big festival with so many artists that have influenced my songwriting,” she said. “I was intimidated but excited to be on the same stage.”

Before setting off as a solo artist, Schneiderman said she was in a 10-piece Motown funk band that regularly played festivals for 10,000 or more people. Being alone on stage was a different animal altogether.

“I was used to big audiences but it was a completely new experience on my own with my own band, my own songs,” she said. “I felt exposed but thrilled.”

Being on her own allows Schneiderman to better express herself, she said.

“I’m inspired by stories and the things in life that make us all the same,” Schneiderman said. “Songs are like implosions to me. It’s a way to untie knots and figure out on the inside what’s hard to say on the outside.”

PT Performance

Schneiderman will perform at 7:30 p.m. March 30 at Rainshadow Recording, 200 Battery Way, building 315, Fort Worden. Tickets are available online at Brown Paper Tickets.

“Stephanie is the quintessential definition of an artist, as she experiments in a wide variety of genres, pushing the boundaries along the way,” said Everett Moran, Rainshadow Recording owner and engineer. He described her as a multi-instrumentalist at home performing electronic music, trip hop and indie pop as well as folk and roots music.

Attendees should expect a completely original musical experience, Moran said.

“I’ll be performing songs on guitar and piano with plenty of anecdotes and stories,” Schneiderman said. “It’s a gorgeous studio and I happen to be fascinated with military compounds, so it’s a win all around.”

In the studio

Schneiderman is currently in the studio recording her latest album. Although she has eight solo recordings under her belt, plus four releases with her collaborative bands Dirty Martini and Swan Sovereign, this will be her first solo album since 2011’s “Live at the Old Church.”

That album was stripped down, with Schneiderman performing on acoustic guitar and piano with a string section and choir backing her.

“A lot of those songs performed on ‘Live At The Old Church’ were recorded in a completely different (manner than) my previous albums,” Schneiderman said. “I wanted to strip everything down to the naked song again, without all of the surrounding textures, to see if they held up. I wanted it to be raw and completely organic.”

For her new album, Schneiderman said the process is tedious but worth the effort.

“Recording is like putting yourself under a microscope for 10 hours a day every day,” she said. “It can be painful. But if you can turn off your inside voice long enough to open your ears and pay attention to the song, the song will pull you in an exciting and surprising direction.”

That is not unlike performing live, Schneiderman said.

“But, what you’re following is a moment that includes the audience,” she said. “Live performance is such a different animal than recording.”

As the music industry continues to change with the prevalence of online streaming, Schneiderman said artists are learning roll with the punches.

“I think to survive as an artist you have to be incredibly flexible and diverse,” she said. “There are still ways to connect with your audience and make money through licensing and through touring. The world is changing and music with it. My main focus is to keep putting out music that feels authentic and makes me stretch.”