Philip Dukes is one of the most active and prominent violists in Britain, with an extensive record of acclaimed performances as a soloist and in chamber ensembles. He has teamed with major stars in performances and recordings from the classical and pop music worlds. He is also a significant educator and is active as a conductor and director. In 2021, Dukes was joined by pianist Peter Donohoe for a Chandos recording of music by Brahms and Schumann.

Dukes was born in 1968 in Birmingham, England. His training was in venerable British musical institutions: the Wells Cathedral School beginning in 1978 and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama beginning in 1985. He also traveled to New York for studies with violist Michael Tree. Dukes' career was launched with a critically lauded debut recital at London's South Bank in 1991, and in 1995, he made his BBC Proms debut at the Royal Albert Hall with the London Mozart Players, performing the new Viola Concerto No. 1 of Sally Beamish, among other works. Dukes was also active in the 1990s as a member of the Plane-Dukes-Rahman Trio.

Dukes has returned to the Proms several times and has often been featured on the BBC 3 radio network. He has been heard as a soloist with major orchestras around the U.K. and in a range of film and television scores, including as part of the Locrian Ensemble of London, which was heard in the BBC productions Wolf Hall and Dickensian. He has also performed with a number of pop stars, including Paul McCartney, Madonna, and Björk.

Dukes returned to Beamish for his debut recording, performing with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra on BIS in 1999. He appeared on the Nimbus label's Forbidden Music, a 2003 album of music from the Theresienstadt concentration camp. In 2006, Dukes was unanimously elected a Fellow of the Guildhall School, and the following year, he was named an Honorary Associate of the Royal Academy of Music. Among his recordings as a soloist are a performance of Rebecca Clarke's Viola Sonata on Naxos in 2007 and one of Franz Liszt's rarely heard viola-and-piano version of Berlioz's Harold in Italy on Naxos in 2012. In 2018, he appeared on Songs of Travel, an album of vocal and chamber music by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Dukes is the artistic director at Marlborough College and the Vaughan Williams Festival in Down Ampney, Gloucester, and he is an associate artistic director of the Savannah Music Festival in the U.S. In 2021, Dukes issued a recording of works for viola and piano by Brahms and Schumann with pianist Peter Donohoe. ~ James Manheim & Keith Finke, Rovi