Scotia Band’s new conductor, Jared Coyle, has a close connection to its previous leader, Dr. Kenneth Ayoob, who retired from his ten-year stretch with the band last fall. Dr. Ayoob served as Coyle’s private clarinet teacher beginning when he was 16 and continued through his undergraduate music education at Cal Poly Humboldt. Coyle, a Fortuna music educator and performing clarinetist, joined Scotia Band in March 2025. Selected as the new conductor in August 2025, and after rehearsing all fall with the band, his first Scotia Band performance occurred in December during the Fortuna Christmas Festival.
Coyle spent his early childhood in Bakersfield, where beginning band was offered in fourth grade. Fourth-grade Jared was very excited to have the opportunity to learn to play an instrument. Concerned that he might not be prepared for band, he convinced his mother to teach him to read music notation the summer before fourth grade. How did he choose the clarinet? Visualizing himself playing improvisational jazz, his first choice was to play the saxophone. But when his parents answered a classified ad for a $120 sax, the seller mentioned a clarinet for $70. So, for Jared, it was to be clarinet.
“Once I had an instrument, I played music all the time,” he says. “My parents supported my enthusiasm for music, and by high school, I was not only playing clarinet, but also saxophone and guitar.”
In December of eighth grade, the family moved to Eureka for his dad’s job in the Parks Department for the City of Eureka. Recalling vacationing here as well as camping at Su-meg State Park when he was younger, Jared felt “really excited at the prospect of living in Humboldt County”.
His first Humboldt County music teacher was Bruce McCay, long-serving music teacher and band director at Zane Middle School. Later, at Eureka High, Don Moehnke and Mark Russell introduced him to local opportunities through orchestra, jazz band, and symphonic band–notably in Woody Thompson’s Eureka Brass group as well as at the early Redwood Coast Music Festival. In his senior year he joined Matt Beck (currently Scotia Band’s lead trumpet) in the dance band For Dancers Only, performing weekly at the Moose and Elk Lodges in Eureka.
After graduating from EHS in 1995, Coyle attended Cal Poly Humboldt with the goal of becoming a music teacher. “I’ve always been interested in teaching,” he says. He grew up surrounded by excellent role models beginning with his mother, an elementary school teacher. And, he notes, “the band and private instrumental music teachers I had in both Bakersfield and Humboldt were exceptional.”
After teaching in Portland, Oregon where his two kids, Matthew and Sarah, were born (Sarah currently plays percussion at Fortuna High and sings in the choir), and following a short return to Bakersfield, twelve years ago he and his wife decided to return to the clear air of Humboldt County, where they taught in Humboldt county schools before enrolling in the Masters of Education program at Cal Poly Humboldt (his wife Jennifer teaches English Language Arts). Since then, he has taught middle school band and elementary school classroom music for the Fortuna Elementary School District, along with a team of colleagues, some of whom also perform with Scotia Band. In fact, one of them, Matt McClimon, is the son of trumpeter Michael McClimon, who conducted Scotia Band for over 35 years. “I really enjoy working with the students here,” says Coyle. “And I love to see their excitement as we make music together.” In addition, he also teaches clarinet at Cal Poly Humboldt.
That’s not all. He juggles all this while also serving on the board of the Fortuna Concert Series as well as a busy performance schedule, which last year included performances at Cal Poly, the Morris Graves Museum of Art, Chamber Players of the Redwoods, and as part of the Fortuna Concert Series (where he played pieces by Claude Debussy, Robert Schumann and Leonard Bernstein, sharing the program with John Chernoff and David Powell.) His special love is, predictably, composers who have written solo and chamber music for clarinet, from Brahms and Débussy all the way back to Mozart, whose Clarinet Quintet in A Major, for clarinet and string quartet, is one of his favorites. “It’s a wonderful piece,” he says.
Where does he hope to take the Scotia Band? “Music is great because you get to create it with others”, he says, “It’s a social experience.” His appreciation for Scotia Band is heightened by the special awareness of community he feels with them, as well as their long tradition of inclusive–and excellent–musicianship, which he hopes to carry forward.
“I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to lead the Scotia Band as its conductor,” he says. “I look forward to being a part of the Scotia Band as we continue to make great music for our community to enjoy.”
Join Scotia Band
Scotia Band welcomes anyone in Humboldt County who plays a wind instrument, percussion, or string bass. Rehearsal of their 2026 repertoire begins March 2 at 7 pm at the Swiss Hall, 5403 Tompkins Hill Road, just south of College of the Redwoods. You can just show up with your instrument or call Band Manager Sharon Holt at (707) 599-4872 for more information.