FRONT AND CENTER: Tonight, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra will debut a new viola concerto. And, yes, that really says “viola” and not “violin.” One of the orchestra’s unsung heroes gets some love from composer Margaret Brouwer and principle violist Ellen Rose. “The viola is a difficult instrument to write a concerto for,” Brouwer tells dallasnews.com. “It’s like the backbone of the string section, this wonderful, gutsy, rich sound, but it also has this blending character. It sort of ties the whole string section together, but it’s easy to get swallowed up.” To hear some of the new piece, take a listen to today’s KERA radio story.

MUSIC BITS: Preston Jones looks ahead to half a dozen local albums we can expect to hear in the next few months (dfw.com) … Anthony Mariani, who writes the Hear Say music column for Fort Worth Weekly, was positively giddy about something he heard on KXT last week. (fwweekly.com) … Hunter Hauk checks in on Dallas folk artist Nicholas Altobelli, who’s putting the finishing touches on a new album. (quickdfw.com).

ROLLIN’ ROLLIN’ ROLLIN’: Dallas documentary maker Mark Birnbaum has been a busy man of late, shooting a short film for the City of Dallas among other things. Robert Wilonsky pinned him down long enough for a post on his short film on Deep Ellum called Dig Deep and a post on Once in a Lifetime, a doc about Lincoln High School students traveling to China.