The percussionist and cultural entrepreneur Philipp Kohnke was born in Braunschweig and began playing in the Municipal Youth Orchestra at the age of 12. After graduating from high school, he studied philosophy in Braunschweig and music theater direction in Detmold until 2002, when he began studying music at the Berlin University of the Arts with Prof. Thomas Lutz and graduated from the Trossingen University of Music with Prof. Franz Lang.

He was a member of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie and an academist in the SWR symphony orchestra, with which he premiered important compositions in Donaueschingen over several years. In the 06/07 season he gained his first opera experience at the National Theater Mannheim. Since 2007 Kohnke is first percussionist of the Lower Saxony State Orchestra. 

Guest engagements regularly take him to the Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and the Dresden Philharmonic. He also maintains good relations with the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bavarian State Opera and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Luxembourg.

He is a lecturer in the youth orchestra of Lower Saxony. In the percussion ensemble "Rummsfeld" he has been creating cross-genre music theater projects in collaboration with other instrumentalists, singers and actors for almost 10 years.

Philipp Kohnke is the initiator and artistic director of the International Percussion Festival ÜBERSCHLAG and the first chairman of the association beyond music e.V.

Since WS 21/22, Kohnke has been a lecturer for orchestral studies at the Music University of Hamburg.