The next Centrum concert this month aims to help support international humanitarian medical care while broadening the consciousness of its audience.

“Hindustani Music for Healing” is set to showcase the traditionally derived rhythms and strains of Alam Khan, who hails from a distinguished lineage of musical artists dating back generations and centuries.

Khan noted that his family’s practice of the traditional classical music of Northern India dates back as far as the 16th century, while his grandfather, the multi-instrumental Allauddin Khan, taught Indian sitarist and composer Ravi Shankar.

“Ravi Shankhar, in turn, became a cultural ambassador for North Indian classical music to the rest of the world during the 1960s and 1970s,” Khan said. “That tradition of music has influenced artists from the Beatles and the Rolling Stones forward.”

Khan’s grandfather passed that tradition on to his father, Ali Akbar Khan, who in turn raised Alam Khan himself to learn and live in the traditional style of guru and student, as Alam not only absorbed the history and nuances of Hindustani classical music, with training that started at the age of 7, but he also became a third-generation player of the sarod, an instrument which boasts as many as 25 strings.

Alam accompanied his father onstage internationally from 1996 to 2006, as they played in venues including the Royal Jodhpur Palace and the Dover Lane Music Festival, both in India, as well as New York’s Lincoln Center Jazz Festival.

After Alam Khan’s solo career began in 1998, he also toured worldwide and received praise from fellow Hindustani performers, including his grandfather’s former pupil Shankar. He co-founded the genre-bending Grand Tapestry group but he still found time to serve as personal assistant to his father during the final years of his life, aiding him in teaching at the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, California, where Alam now teaches advanced instrumental classes.

When Alam Khan plays at the Wheeler Theater of Fort Worden State Park at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 19, with tickets selling for $25, a portion of the proceeds go to benefit Doctors Without Borders. Khan also hopes to provide a perspective-shifting experience to his listeners.

Although he believes audiences will enjoy the music so long as they approach it “with open minds,” Khan empathized that the goal of his performances goes beyond entertainment, because he aspires to provide listening experiences that will be at once “cathartic” and “profoundly transformative” for his concertgoers.

“It’s almost like a devotional, where you’re looking inward to connect to the higher sources of the cosmos,” Khan said. “I’m looking to channel the ancient ragas of Indian classical music in ways that will possess a powerful emotional impact. My father was almost akin to a shaman, in that his music felt like a form of worship, but the audience is allowed to make their own discoveries.”

Khan clarified that his music is “not about religion” per se, but is instead about taking listeners “on journeys to explore things that are higher than themselves,” making it ideal for therapeutic and meditative purposes.

Centrum Director of Marketing and Communications Jaime Jaynes agreed that this concert is designed to highlight “the healing aspects of Hindustani classical music, offering an immersive experience that underscores the power of this tradition of music to soothe and inspire,” and as such, attendees can expect a performance that “not only delights the senses, but also provides a deep sense of tranquility and connection.”

“This music complements spaces ranging from huge concert halls to temples to more intimate venues,” Khan said. “Depending upon your own background, you might not be used to it, but it’s a progenitor for many other forms of music, that has pushed the evolution of music forward. My goal is to honor that tradition while expanding upon it, since I’m both caucasian and Indian, so I come from two worlds myself.”

Khan’s final advice to prospective listeners was to come to his concert and “let the music do its work.”

For more information about Centrum and its programs, please visit centrum.org or contact jjaynes@centrum.org.