Johannes Enders & Rainer Böhm
Biography Johannes Enders & Rainer Böhm
Johannes Enders
is a German saxophonist, composer, producer and teacher. Since 2009 he has held a professorship for jazz saxophone at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy University of Music and Theatre in Leipzig.
Born in Weilheim on May 12, 1967, Johannes Enders' musical career began at the age of 14, when he switched from flute to alto saxophone and discovered his love for soul and jazz music. Strong influences for him at that time are Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones, David Sanborn, James Brown, Michael Brecker and later finally Charlie Parker and John Coltrane.
It quickly became clear to him that music would define his life. After a few years of apprenticeship with Jürgen Seefelder and André Legros at the Richard Strauss Conservatory in Munich, he travels to the Music Academy in Graz in 1987 to study jazz saxophone and improvisation with Charlie Miklin, Adelhard Roidinger and Carl Drewo. There it lasts him only two years.
After meetings with key figures such as Jerry Bergonzi and David Liebman, with his mentors Vincent Herring and Reggie Workman, who arranges a scholarship for him at the New School in New York, his long-cherished dream comes true, to move to the capital of jazz to study and play with such greats as Donald Byrd, Jaki Byard, Jeff Tain Watts, Brad Mehldau, Chris Potter, Joey Calderazzo, Sam Rivers, Peter Bernstein, Joe Locke, Pete LaRoca, Roy Hargrove and many others.
His silver trophy at the "American Music Fest" in San Francisco (1990) and the participation in the renowned "Thelonious Monk" competition in Washington D.C. the following year also pave the way for him in the promised land.
Back in Germany, Johannes Enders quickly established himself as one of the most important voices on the tenor saxophone and was signed by the renowned jazz label ENJA Records. Here he founds his own projects such as his Acoustic Quartet, his saxophone quartet ZeitGeistMaschine and the duos with jazz legend Günter Baby Sommer or with Rainer Böhm as well as his electro-jazz projects Enders Room and Enders Dome.
Over the years, he has been honored for his immense creative output with the Austrian Jazz Prize, the Cultural Promotion Prize for Music of the City of Munich, the SWR Jazz Prize, the Weilheim Culture Prize, the New German Jazz Prize, the Jazz Echo 2012, the German Music Authors' Prize and the Bavarian State Promotion Prize, among others.
As a sought-after sideman in bands such as The Notwist, Tied & Tickled Trio, Billy Hart European Quintett, Günther Baby Sommers Quartett Süd, Franco Ambrosetti Quartett, Karl Ratzer Quintett and many more, he has since played in all the major clubs and festivals and immortalized himself on over 100 studio recordings to date.
