After the Abitur, he studied oboe and conducting at the Leopold Mozart Centre as well as musicology, philosophy and history in Augsburg.
[1] From 1994 to 2003 he was research assistant to Ernst Hilmar at the International Franz Schubert Institut (IFSI) in Vienna and in the Kommission für Musikforschung [de], subsequently a scholarship holder of the Austrian Science Fund in Vienna.
Bodendorff is currently working as music critic of the Kieler Nachrichten, freelance publicist and conductor of the Symphony Orchestra in Plön.
He is also a freelance reviewer, essayist, author of scientific articles and fiction books, especially on Franz Schubert, Werner Egk and the history of wind music.
He is the author of numerous encyclopaedia articles and short biographies, editor of Schubert's and Salieri's church music works at Carus-Verlag and is also active as a musician and arranger.