Michel Doneda
Michel Doneda (born 1954 in Brive-la-Gaillarde) is a French soprano and sopranino saxophonist working in free improvisation. He began playing at fifteen, in bands in his home region, and has been active in improvised music since the early 1980s. His playing draws on traditional music, jazz, experimental rock, theatre and poetry, and he has played with many of the main European improvisers. In the early 1980s Michel Doneda founded the saxophone trio Hic et Nunc in Toulouse, and he later worked for many years with singer Beñat Achiary.
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Michel Doneda on soprano saxophone, eRikm on samplers and scratches, Jean-Marc Montera on guitar and electronics, recorded in Metz and Lons-le-Saunier in May 1999. Liner notes by Thurston Moore.
Grani d'Impacts
"Silence. Presence. Breath. It was 1999 when I first met Michel Doneda, with Tetsu Saitoh, leading a free improvisation workshop in Genoa, my hometown. Looking back, it's remarkable how much that workshop influenced my life and led to many subsequent…
Points Of Convergences
This double album was recorded on the night of June 3, 2014, at Saint-Merry Church, in the heart of Paris. Beyond its architectural beauty, Saint-Merry possesses an extraordinary acoustic quality, which has shaped countless sonic experiences and left…
Udarnik
2011 release ** "French soprano saxophonist Michel Doneda and Swiss accordionist Jonas Kocher are joined by Slovenians Tomaz Grom (double bass) and Tao G Vrhovec Sambolec (laptop) in four tight, tense improvisations recorded at the (DA)(NE)S Festival…
El retorn de l'escolta - A la memòria de Marianne Brull
This recording is the document of the concert that took place on March 15, 2023 at L’Auditori de Barcelona in Sala 04-Alicia de Larrocha.
It is therefore a document as faithful as possible to what happened that day when for the first time Doneda, Ni…
Dos D'Ânes
2009 release ** "Hacking away on a homemade system and twisted electronic tools, eRikm and Noetinger gleefully activate levers, tactile screens and joysticks with the utmost concentration. Doneda makes the air shake with acoustic vibrations. Together…
Miettes (Book)
In reading this text, we rediscover the subtle pleasure we feel when listening to Michel Doneda's solo concerts. Beneath an apparent disorder in which intuition alone seems to guide the unfolding of a pointillist discourse, a highly structured though…
Panzer Constellations
The music of Panzer Constellations was the result of a single occasion - by the invitation of After Action Review - to record a duo of soprano saxophones for the wonderful acoustics available at the former Heeresbekleidungsamt, Bernau - now an expans…
Miracle
Dovetailing and combining the rich harmonics of Michel Doneda's soprano and sopranino saxophone with Pascal Battus' rotating surfaces--mechanisms from small consumer electronics and their like put in motion and in contact with resonators and vibrator…
Cave Canes !
Michel Doneda, soprano and sopranino saxophones. Mathias Pontevia, horizontal drums. Ian Saboya, electric guitar. Recorded in 2014 at Novo Lokal in Bordeaux, France. 300 copies.
Tele.s.therion - Luzifers Abschied
Acousmatic black metal. A concept album based on the namesake fourth scene of «Samstag aus Licht», from the opera «Licht: die sieben Tage der Woche», composed by Karlheinz Stockhausen.
Concert public
Released in 1989. A few copies founded in the basement of the label. Michel Doneda (soprano saxophone), Daunik Lazro (alto saxophone), Lê Quan Ninh (percussion). “Here’s an exuberant early Session by three Artists who have become stalwarts of the Eur…
Everybody Digs Michel Doneda
A collection of solo pieces from forward-thinking French soprano saxophonist Michel Doneda, using extended techniques and utilizing every inch of the horn, creating unconventional and captivating sonic expressions from the instrument.
M. Doneda, s…
The cigar that talks
Michel Doneda (saxophones), John Russell (guitar) and Roger Turner (percussion). Recorded at Studio Honolulu in France (2009). 'What story can a non-figurative music tell if not that of the men that made it ? The memory is adjusted to the shape of th…
s/t
Fred Frith, electric guitar. Michel Doneda, soprano and sopranino saxes. First meeting recorded live at Swissnex, San-Francisco (February 2009).
Linge
Michel Doneda, soprano saxophone and radio. Joris Rühl, clarinet. 'Le Linge was my grandparents' old farm in the East of France. It is there, in the barn full of old hay, abandoned wasp nests, murmurs and memories, in its sweltering, dusty heat, that…
Sitting on your stairs
Lol Coxhill and Michel Doneda started playing soprano saxophone duets together in 2008. This improvised concert, recorded at Les Instantes Chavires near Paris in 2011, turned out to be their last musical meeting. Two musicians who manage to be the…
Gaycre (2)
Xavier Charles : clarinet, Michel Doneda : saxophone, Jean Pallandre : microphones. Following the first meeting in 1997, they went back to the same places to record again an incredible meeting of soundscape !
Cristallisation
Over 4 hours of improvisations were recorded over these two days in april 2010. We then trimmed the sound sequences and the silence, while keeping our specific interactions and phrasing of sounds between us and with the location. But sound is a flexi…
Razine
“Razine by Erikm and Michel Doneda At the very beginning of the year 1900, Velimir Khlebnikov is listening to the new century on the banks of the Caspian Sea. In the gyrations of the Dervishes he conceives his Futurian equations. He creates the comin…
Action Mécanique
“Michel Doneda soprano and soprano saxophones. Jonas Kocher accordion, objects. Recorded live on 27th november 2009 at Red House, Sofia, Bulgaria. Mastering by Christian Weber. Design: Fabienne Bartel. Limited edition of 160 numeroted copies. Screenp…
beet5 / Nervures
Limited edition of 200 copies. beet5 takes Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto as its starting point. The slow movement was recorded using a special turntable for the blind that plays back records at quarter speed. I had an old recording of the piece ly…
White Stone Black Lamp
'From Between Trio partners percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani and saxophonist Michel Doneda in a duo release of unusual improvisation, the first release on Tatsuya's new Kobo label. Doneda performs on soprano and sopranino, chirping and smearing uppe…
Grape Skin
The trio of Michel Doneda, Christoph Schiller and Jonas Kocher performing music of delicate tension and great assurance recorded in the spectacular church at Ligerz, Switzerland. "Music of delicate tension and great assurance, recorded in 2010 in th…
Overdeveloped pigeons
2011 release ** Limited to 200 copies. "Alessandra Rombolá (flutes and objects) and Michel Doneda (soprano and sopranino saxophones, radio, objects) set off to discover rare birds whose breath provides the momentum: plaintive, expressive, even vocal …
Kirme
Michel Doneda (saxophone soprano) and Taavi Kerikme (piano). Recorded in april 2008 in the studio of Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre by Tammo Sumera and in december 2009 in Kanuti Gildi AAL by Ats Treimaa. Mastered by Margo Kolar. Design by …
Flore de cataclysmo
This trio features very distinct musical personalities and caught us off guard simply by its appearance at all, but we sure did smile when we heard it as we knew it would pack the goods. Both Zach (percussion) and Doneda (reeds) lay sturdy frameworks…
M’Uoaz
1997 release ** "Japanese bassist Tetsu Saitoh stands out as a new hope from across the ocean. He's the new ray in the sea of bodies that play the same standard fare. These two recordings, released on his own Scissors label, outline the here and now …
Eclipses
Michel Doneda, soprano saxophone; Jean Pallandre, sound manipulation; Vladimire Skoda, Sculpture and drawings; The Tarn river, natural sounds. Recorded 1992 at the Moulins Albigeois, France, co-existent with an exhibition of metal sculptures by Vladi…
From between
'It gives me great pleasure to announce the first release of the new label 'substance over surface editions' - SoSEDITIONS - an offering of recent live and studio recordings by the improvising trio of Michel Doneda, Jack Wright, and Tatsuya Nakatani.…
La drache
Alto sax player Katsura Yamauchi was born in Oita, Kyushu, in 1954. In 2002 he quit his company job to become a full-time musician, and each year since '03 has traveled to Europe and strengthened his ties with musicians in France, Germany, The Nether…
Placés dans l’air
Carried like a feather by the wind, crushed by the pressure unmistakably present, this soprano saxophone trio, sculptors of air columns, explorers of fullness, tamers of emptyness, plunges us in the complex relationship of three poets of the breath. …
Breath on the floor
Alessandro Bosetti, soprano saxophone; Michel Doneda, soprano saxophone. Recorded in Castelmaurou on the floor of Adre L vocobs studio, nd. Cover drawing (reproduced above) by Alessandro Bosetti; design by Marcus Liebig.