Classically trained, the percussionist Lê Quan Ninh 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. 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.)

As a volunteer, he is one of the artistic advisors of the Ryoanji Association and of the festival Le Bruit de la Musique. As an improviser, he has been involved in several regular groups and has occasionally met with a great number of others.

He 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, Anna Pietsch...).

In 2014, he published Improvising freely: the ABCs of an experience available in English from Publication Studio. A 2018 addendum in French is available to read in the Revue des Ressources. He is going to publish the ultimate version of the text in 2023.