Michel Doneda and Lê Quan Ninh started working together in 1986 but "Aplomb" is their very first recording as a duo. An art of breath and of beating, a supple gesture for a subtle yet penetrating sound object.
"This record reflects the quality of the commitment of both artists, and provides a wonderful continuity path of two musicians. Quite naturally and regularly, they come together or separately, sometimes with other friends and for nearly thirty years, to diffuse into our microphones what we call sound. The mystery of this transformation remains untouched, our emotions too.
They began this strange musical path with Francois Dietz, in a fantastic concert in trio with Daunik Lazro, they continue their race with Jean-Guillaume Legrand. And our task is to fix the sounds of these poets without text, to allow all, thanks to a magical collection, to vibrate with the strongest accents of our common history."
Michel Doneda (born in 1954 in Brive-la-Gaillarde, France) is a soprano saxophonist of improvised music. He multiplies the meetings and the collaborations since the beginning of the years 1980: Didier Masmalet, Steve Robins,
Beñat Achiary,
Fred van Hove,
John Zorn,
Lol Coxhill, Raymond Boni, Phil Wachsmann, Ravi Prasard,
Joëlle Léandre,
Daunik Lazro,
Lê Quan Ninh, Alain Joule, Barre Phillips, Martine Altenburger, Dominique Regef, Elvin Jones, Elliot Sharp, Jin Hi Kim, Mats Gustafsson,
Sonic Youth,
Camel Zekri, Keith Rowe, Tetsu Saitoh, Kazue Sawai, Gunter Muller,
Fabrice Charles, Gérard Fabbiani, Bhob Rainey,
Bertrand Gauguet,
Giuseppe Ielasi,
Stéphane Garin,
Jérôme Noetinger,
Alfredo Costa Monteiro,
eRikm,
Serge Pey, Masaki Iwana, Valérie Metivier, Yukiko Nakamura...
Classically trained, the percussionist Lê Quan Ninh (born 1961 in Paris) has been active since the early 1980s in the field of contemporary music interpretation and free improvisation.
He was one of the founding members of the Quatuor Hêlios, a percussion ensemble from 1986 to 2012 (creations by Jean-Pierre Drouet, George E. Lewis, Kaija Saariaho,
Jean-Christophe Feldhandler, Jean-Louis Charpille, Daniel Koskowitz, Vinko Globokar, Giorgio Battistelli, Chrichan Larson, Luc Therminarias, Georges Aperghis, etc.). With cellist Martine Altenburger, he founded in 2006 the ensemble]h[iatus, a contemporary music ensemble whose members are both performers and improvisers (creations by Vinko Globokar, Peter Jakober, Steffen Krebber, Jennifer Walshe,
Anthony Pateras, Jürg Frey, etc.)
Involved in many collectives and associations, and in the programming of festivals, he also has a privileged relationship with dance (Franck Beaubois, Marie Cambois, Clara Cornil, Olivia Grandville, Masaki Iwana, Patricia Kuypers, Fine Kwiatkowski, Yukiko Nakamura, Michel Raji, Kirstie Simson, Moeno Wakamatsu...).
As an improviser, he has been involved in several regular formations with artists such as
Daunik Lazro,
Michel Doneda,
Beñat Achiary, Dominique Regef, Paul Rogers, Frédéric Blondy, Peter Kowald...) and has met more occasionally with a great number of others (
Thomas Ankersmit,
Pascal Battus,
Benjamin Bondonneau,
Fabrice Charles,
Xavier Charles,
Audrey Chen,
David Chiesa,
Werner Dafeldecker,
Axel Dörner,
Jacques Demierre,
Werner Durand,
Max Eastley,
Jean-Yves Evrard,
Christian Fennesz,
Fred Frith,
Bertrand Gauguet,
Jean-Luc Guionnet,
Keiji Haino,
Géraldine Keller,
Didier Lasserre,
Joëlle Léandre,
Lionel Marchetti,
Christian Marclay,
Bérangère Maximin,
Jean-Marc Montera,
Andy Moor,
Marc Namblard,
Jérôme Noetinger,
Jim O'Rourke,
Evan Parker,
Claude Parle,
Serge Pey,
Lee Ranaldo,
Carole Rieussec,
John Russell,
Frederic Rzewski,
John Tilbury,
Roger Turner,
Fred Van Hove,
Mathieu Werchowski,
Christine Wodrascka, etc.).
In 2010, he published
Improviser librement – Abécédaire d'une expérience (Mômeludies), which has been translated into English and is available from Publication Studio.
