"Michel Doneda (F) soprano saxophone, born in 1954, comes from the French South-West. He is a self-taught musician.

In 1980 he founded in Toulouse a reed trio: HIC ET NUNC, a group that toured quite a lot in France, playing mostly improvised music. At the same time he founded with musicians, dancers and actors a place called IREA (Institute for research and exchange between arts of improvisation).

In the following years, he participated in music projects with other artists and he became a regular guest of the Chantenay-Villedieu festival. Meeting other artists he developed a very personal approach with his music and his instrument in improvised music. During this period he played with Europeans musicians: Fred Van Hove, Phil Wachsmann, Max Eastley, Steve Beresford and Americans: John Zorn, Eliott Sharp, Elvin Jones

In 1985 he made his first record under his own name: TERRA (Nato record). At the same time he started playing regurlarly with Lê Quan Ninh, Daunik Lazro, Benat Achiary, Martine Altenburger, Barre Phillips, Paul Rogers, Tetsu Saitoh, Kazue Sawai. More recently he developed his work with Keith Rowe, Gunter Muller, Bhob Rainey, Giuseppe Ielasi and dancers as Masaki Iwana, Yukiko Nakamura, Valérie Métivier and poets, actors.

Since then, he has been very involved in the international improvised music scene, toured in Africa, Japan, Asia, USA, Canada, South America, Russia and with a lot of improvisers in Europe. In 1992 he founded in Toulouse with musicians, actors, poets, dancers the association: La Flibuste. As of today he recorded almost 50 records for European, Americans and Japanese labels."

"After having studied classical music with Jacques Di Donato, Joris Rühl oriented himself towards contemporary music, written, improvised and jazz, with a predilection for projects blurring the borders between these different labels. He plays with contemporary music ensembles like L'Instant Donné or Hiatus, with jazz ensembles like TØRN, Hübsch 8, Simon Rummel Ensemble and with the experimental music ensembles ONCEIM and Spat' Sonore. He also improvises with, among many others, Michel Doneda, Thierry Madiot, Isabelle Duthoît, Eve Risser, Antez. His discography includes discs released under the labels Neos Jazz, Satelita, OBS and Umlaut Records. Beside this activity of musician, he also works on films and experimental videos."