Ryan Anthony is the principal trumpet with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and founder of a Cancer Blows, an annual concert series featuring the world's top trumpeters to raise funds and awareness towards finding a cure for multiple myeloma, which he was diagnosed with in 2013.

JN: Ryan, get us up to speed. What's going on in your world right now?

RA: The Cancer blows concerts have been a stunning success. When we did it in 2015, we thought it would just be a one-off concert. After my diagnosis, I was given x number of years to be able to fight it, and I was touched by so many colleagues around the world.

It was actually Doc Severinsen who started it. A week before my first bone marrow transplant, he asked if there was anything he could do to help. At that point, just to give myself something to hold onto, I just asked him to promise me we could share the stage together one more time. That really became the battle cry to everyone: just tell me we can share the stage one day. I thought they were just being nice to give me something to hold onto during the transplant, but it turns out that they kept their promises.

It’s been a huge success. I’ve been amazed with the amount of artists who want to be involved, to use our talents to do something good. For me, it’s really the best medicine that you could ask for.

JN: It had to have been a morale boost to have so many great players wanting to participate.

RA: Yes. These are my heroes wanting to stand by my side. It makes me feel like a kid again. I told my wife that if we get to a point where we can beat this, I've literally been given a stage where we can make some noise about it. This is my new lot in life. I have a voice for other patients who don't have one.

JN: Ryan, you're a world-class performer. And I like to start each interview for this podcast with what you consider to be one of your worst moments as a performer. A time when you expected to do well, but it just didn't work out.

RA: Right off the bat, I can think of two particular concerts. The first was in Cincinnati, and I just was not able to perform the show and do what I expected, nor of what the audience expected. I finally had to just come out and apologize to the audience. I told them I was having some issues and just couldn't get through the program, and that all I could do was give them my best.

It turns out that it was a very moving experience for myself and everyone there. It was a learning experience for me. I learned it's not necessarily about the notes. It's about the honesty and just giving 100% of what I could do that day.

Sometimes, it meant taking things down an octave, sometimes it meant changing the program around. It was very embarrassing for me at the time. But looking back, it ended up being a very positive turning point because I was able to connect with the audience in a way I ordinarily wouldn't have been able to.

RA: Another story is from about 3 years ago. I was on some new treatments and it just wasn't working. I felt like I was letting not only myself down, but my colleagues and the audience as well. So I finished the concert and went home and told my wife that I just didn't think I could continue doing my job with circumstances as they were. I wasn't playing in a way that I did when I accepted the job.

That concert, I was not playing well. I couldn't play the part, I was missing notes. But the very next day, I got an email from a family in Oklahoma. A woman's father was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, and he didn't want to continue doing the treatments, didn't want the transplant. So they took him to the symphony concert in Dallas just to get away, and they pointed out to the father that there's this guy down there playing trumpet.