Donald Kontomanou grew up inside the French jazz scene rather than arriving at it. The Bibliotheque nationale de France records him as born in Paris and lists his occupation plainly as "batteur de jazz." He is the eldest of the four sons of the singer Elisabeth Kontomanou, who told the Journal du Dimanche in November 2007 that all four had become musicians and that Donald had been appearing at her side for several years; she is herself the daughter of Jo Maka, a Guinean saxophonist who worked in France. ECM Records, introducing him on its own artist page, describes him as a "French drummer of Guinean and Greek heritage." The standard press biography circulated by the festivals that book him has him starting on drums at twelve and leaving for New York three years later, where he worked in J.D. Allen's group, Duane Eubanks's quintet and Alex Harding's quartet, and alongside Jean-Michel Pilc, Greg Tardy, Sam Newsome, Eric Revis and Stephane Belmondo. He then spent a year in India studying tabla technique before settling in Paris in 2002.

His first records came quickly after that move, and from two directions at once. One was Frix, a Paris quartet he co-founded with saxophonists Cyrille Mechin and Etienne de la Sayette and bassist Ivan Rechard, a band with no chordal instrument that mixed original jazz-groove writing with samplers and vintage electronics; it issued Live In Niksic (2005) and Girls Inside (2006) on the small French label Petit Label. The other was his mother's working band. He is the drummer on Waitin' For Spring (2005, Nocturne NTCD385), the session that put her alongside John Scofield, soprano saxophonist Sam Newsome, pianist Laurent Coq and bassist Darryl Hall, and the record behind her 2006 Victoire du Jazz in the vocal category. He stayed for Back To My Groove (2007, Nocturne NTCD406), a larger cast including pianist Orrin Evans, alto saxophonist Pierrick Pedron, guitarist Marvin Sewell, harpist Isabelle Olivier and percussionist Leon Parker, with arrangements by his half-brother Gustav Karlstrom, and for Siren Song, recorded live at the Arsenal de Metz on January 19, 2008 with the Philharmonie de Lorraine under Jacques Mercier and released on Plus Loin Music the following year.

Through the 2010s he became one of the drummers French bandleaders build records around. Alto saxophonist Geraldine Laurent's quartet with pianist Paul Lay and bassist Yoni Zelnik cut At Work in March 2015 at MidiLive Studios, produced by Laurent de Wilde for Gazebo, and Cooking on March 18, 19 and 20, 2019, released that October. At Work took the Academie Charles Cros Grand Prix du Jazz and the Academie du Jazz's Prix du disque francais for 2015; on October 7, 2020 the Academie des Victoires du Jazz named Cooking album of the year. De Wilde also hired him for his own trio with bassist Jerome Regard: New Monk Trio (Gazebo, 2017), a Thelonious Monk centenary record that took the Academie du Jazz's Prix du disque francais for 2017, and Life Is A Movie, recorded September 14 and 15, 2022 at the Studio Gil Evans in Amiens, which closes with "Mes Insomnuits," a Kontomanou composition and his first writing credit on record.

The group that has carried him furthest outside France is the trio pianist Yonathan Avishai formed with him and Zelnik and originally billed as Modern Times. Their debut, Modern Times, was recorded on July 22 and 23, 2014 at Studio Juillaguet in the Charente and released in 2015 on Jazz&People, sixteen tracks mixing Avishai originals with "I've Got It Bad (And That Ain't Good)" and Louis Armstrong's "Cornet Chop Suey." The Parade followed in 2016, cut June 1 and 2 at the Studio Gil Evans with clarinettist and alto saxophonist Cesar Poirier and percussionist Inor Sotolongo added. Then came Joys and Solitudes, recorded in February 2018 at the Auditorio Stelio Molo RSI in Lugano, produced by Manfred Eicher and released January 25, 2019 as ECM 2611, an eight-track programme opening with Duke Ellington's "Mood Indigo." The trio returned to Jazz&People for Shapes & Sounds, recorded March 31 to April 2, 2024 at Studio Sextan in Malakoff and released that October, whose fourth medley folds in Steve Lacy's "No Baby." Kontomanou is the drummer on all four.

The rest of the catalogue is broad and almost entirely French-based. He has been Paul Lay's drummer since the mid-2010s, on Deep Rivers (Laborie Jazz, 2020) with singer Isabel Sorling, on L'Odyssee, recorded October 3 to 5, 2020 with the Hungarian bassist Matyas Szandai and released by Gazebo in October 2024, and on the choral project Waves of Light with Joel Suhubiette's Choeur de chambre Les Elements. He plays on both of Sophie Alour's collaborations with the Egyptian oud player Mohamed Abozekry, Joy (recorded September 27 and 28, 2019 at Studio Libretto, Antony) and enjoy (recorded live at La Grange au Lac in Evian on February 12, 2021). He has been in Leila Olivesi's bands for close to twenty years, from L'Etrange Fleur (2007) through TIY (2011), Utopia (2015) and the octet records Astral (recorded June 28 to 30, 2022) and African Rhapsody (recorded in March 2025). Other sessions include Camille Bertault's Le Tigre (Okeh/Sony, 2020) with pianist Jacky Terrasson, trumpeter Eric Le Lann's Life On Mars (2016), David Linx and Diederik Wissels's Winds Of Change (2013), Jean-Philippe Scali and Glenn Ferris's Mingus project Low Down (recorded January 29 to 31, 2016), Gilles Naturel's Contrapuntic Jazz Band Act 2 (2014), the Spira/Mirabassi quartet Spirabassi's Improkofiev (recorded January 27 and 28, 2020), and two tracks on pianist Omri Mor's It's About Time, one of them with Avishai Cohen on bass.

Kontomanou's reputation rests on how well he holds a group together rather than on display, which is why the same bandleaders keep rebuilding around him. His two long-running rhythm sections, with Yoni Zelnik in the Avishai trio and the Geraldine Laurent quartet and with Jerome Regard in Laurent de Wilde's trio, have each run a decade or more. The range of what he is asked to do is unusually wide for a straight-ahead player: a chordless electric-tinged quartet in Frix, a singer with a symphony orchestra on Siren Song, an eight-piece with a vocal ensemble on Leila Olivesi's African Rhapsody, Egyptian derbouka and oud on Sophie Alour's Joy, and the extreme restraint of an ECM piano trio on Joys and Solitudes, a record whose eight tracks mostly run past five minutes and where the drums work almost entirely in the spaces the piano leaves. The year he spent in India studying tabla, which every biography of him mentions, sits behind that comfort with hand-drum textures and with time played as something elastic rather than metronomic. He is also, on the evidence of "Mes Insomnuits," a writer, though so far only once on record.