Melbourne-based composer, multi-instrumentalist and sound artist Cory Champion has been announced winner of the 2025 APRA Best Jazz Composition Award for Cascade d’Ars, performed by Clear Path Ensemble. 

Hailing from Pōneke, where the award was presented ahead of the Wellington Jazz Festival, Champion’s Clear Path Ensemble riffs on jazz-fusion in the mode of Herbie Hancock and Azymuth, with elements of minimalism, ambient, techno and break beat included in their exploratory sound world. 

The award-winning Cascade d’Ars features on their ‘Black Sand’ album, which was released independently in May 2025. The piece is performed by Champion (drums, vibraphone, percussion and guitar), Johnny Lawrence (double bass), Mike Isaacs (bass clarinet), and Louisa Williamson on flute. 

The track references a waterfall in the Pyrenees mountain ranges. Vibraphone and glockenspiel motifs create a foundation for chime passages supported by light guitar, percussion and double bass, with the piece flowing between American minimalism and bossa-nova. 

The two other finalists for theAPRA Best Jazz Composition Award were Children of the Way, composed by Jake Baxendale, performed by Waypeople, and Tone Clocks, composed by Daniel Beban, performed by Devils Gate Outfit. The finalists and winner were decided by an anonymous panel of judges who are APRA members and active in the Aotearoa jazz community.