BACK TO THE BATON: Jaap van Zweden launches his third season as the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s music director tonight with an all-Beethoven program at the Meyerson. But this will be his first without concertmaster Emanuel Borok to his left. The DSO will bring in 10 guest concertmasters this season as part of the search for Borok’s replacement. “You want everything in a concertmaster,” van Zweden tells dallasnews.com, “a great player in the orchestra, and someone who can stand up and play a great violin concerto. You also need a really social person, who knows how to handle sometimes difficult situations, maybe a problematic person in the orchestra who’s not happy. But there are some great people who are coming here.”

MUSIC BITS: Jazz By the Boulevard hopes to avoid the rain this weekend that washed out much of the music last year. DFW.com says the event represents a jazz resurgence in Cowtown. (dfw.com) … Meanwhile, the Toadies resurgence also continues. Kirtland Records is rounding up artists to record a tribute album to the Fort Worth act. (DC at Night) … Fort Worth Weekly tracks the transformation of the prog-metal band Loaded Moses into the “soft metal” group In Memory of Man. (fwweekly.com)

CHO ON THE GO: Margaret Cho is turning into a Jill of all trades. The comedian has already had her own network sitcom. And now she’s got a music album out. She’ll be sharing some of those songs around her standup routine when she plays the Verizon Theatre in Grand Prairie on Saturday. Oh, and she’ll also be on Dancing With the Stars this fall. But comedy remains her bread and butter. “The show is still a stand-up show, and I’ll do a couple of songs here and there,” she tells quickdfw.com. “But in terms of what I do, I wrote a lot of stand-up, and I don’t want to not do that.”

TED MANOR: TED is partnering with SMU for an event at One Arts Plaza on Sept. 14. The TED conference is the brainchild of Richard Saul Wurman. And if you’re curious about what kind of money can be made from gathering a bunch of geniuses in a room, check out Wurman’s house in Newport, R.I.