CLEVELAND, Ohio – If it’s true that the best relationships develop unexpectedly, composer Tyler Taylor has a bright future with the Cleveland Orchestra.

That’s because Taylor never sought or even applied to be the group’s new Lewis Composer Fellow, beginning this season. He was simply selected for the honor, hand-picked from a world of worthy candidates by music director Franz Welser-Möst.

When his inbox lit up with an email from the Cleveland Orchestra — a group whose recordings were formative to his love of music — “I thought it was a scam,” Taylor said, noting that as a composer, “You’re very vulnerable. You get rejected all the time. For this to just happen, in the opposite direction, it was hard to believe.”

The orchestra’s interest in Taylor isn’t hard to fathom. His credentials a

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