Candice Agree
Candice Agree joined WFMT in 2013, her “vocal” life an alphabet soup of radio stations, audio books, commercials, and industrials. She interned for Howard Stern (WNBC) and worked on air and off in Washington, DC (VOA, WETA) and New York City (WQXR, WNCN, WNYC, WAXQ, ABC Radio Network, SiriusXM). An off-camera announcer with CBS News since 1998, she’s heard on CBS Evening News, Weekend News, and Sunday Morning, as well as Sunday Morning on the Radio and CBS News podcasts. Candice studied theory and composition at Eastman School of Music; she received her BA in Russian from Barnard College. A Foundation for Iberian Music Contributing Scholar, her weekly program The Spanish Hour has been distributed nationally since 2010 via PRX. At WFMT, she hosts weekdays from 3:00 to 7:00 pm and Baroque&Before on Wednesdays at 10:00 pm.
Marilyn Rea Beyer
Marilyn Rea Beyer got onboard The Midnight Special by listening to WFMT as a teenager in Lansing, Illinois. Concerts at Orchestra Hall, the Earl of Old Town, and Navy Pier fueled her passion for folk music. Meanwhile, her love of musical theater grew while studying performance at Purdue and Northwestern. After moving to New England, Marilyn spent many years as an on-air folk radio host and music director at Boston’s WUMB, and served on the board of legendary Club Passim. She also enjoyed careers in education, high-tech, and PR. In 2019, she returned to Chicago and succeeded Rich Warren as host of The Midnight Special in 2020. Marilyn loves emceeing folk concerts, biking the Lakefront Trail, and performing her poems and stories.
Oliver Camacho
Oliver Camacho joined the announcer team in February of 2019. He is the co-host and creative consultant of Opera Box Score and co-host of OperaNow! Podcast. A proud graduate of Chicago’s Lane Technical High School, where he was mentored by George Rico, Oliver went on to study music at Northwestern University, and historically informed performance practice at the Amherst Early Music Festival and Early Music Vancouver. His musical passions are opera, art song, choral music, Early Music, and discovering new composers as well as those who have been previously marginalized or disenfranchised. In January of 2021, Oliver began hosting Listening to Singers, and in October of the same year, he was named WFMT’s Music Director.
Robbie Ellis
Robbie Ellis joined the WFMT team as a part-time presenter in 2015, and started full-time in 2020 as the producer and presenter of Introductions. You can also hear him on air on Sunday afternoons. He's fronted a variety of broadcasts and events for WFMT, including hosting Classical Cabaret from the piano. Originally from Auckland, New Zealand, he studied Composition at the University of Auckland and started in classical music radio at RNZ Concert. He's been a teaching artist with The Second City, Chicago Opera Theater, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; and he's composed and MC'd musical comedy concerts for the Oistrakh Symphony of Chicago and Fourth Coast Ensemble. He is a music director for comedy theater, works as an event MC around town, and performs his comedy songs from the piano.
Lisa Flynn
Lisa Flynn has been a program host and producer for WFMT since 1991. As the midday weekday announcer, she presents The New Releases and Music in Chicago, hosts live studio performances, and interviews guest artists. She has hosted many programs for the WFMT Radio Network, including War Letters (the 2002 winner of the Peter Lisagor Award), as well as broadcasts for Mozart’s 250th birthday from Salzburg and the International Chopin Piano Competition from Warsaw. Before coming to Chicago, Lisa presented classical music in Columbus, Ohio, and Orlando, Florida. She holds a music degree from the University of Central Florida.
Kerry Frumkin
In addition to being your host for weekday evenings, Peabody Award winner Kerry Frumkin is a regular host of live concert broadcasts including Live from WFMT, concerts from the Ravinia Festival, and WFMT’s premiere visiting artist series, Impromptu. Kerry hosts many WFMT Radio Network broadcasts from such locations as the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and the Salzburg Festival. A native Chicagoan, Kerry grew up with WFMT. His love of music and radio played an important part in his life at Northwestern University and the University of Wisconsin, where he eventually became program director of Wisconsin Public Radio. He’s always been a strong advocate of live music broadcasts, and cherishes having interviewed many of the performers he admires including Itzhak Perlman, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Renée Fleming, John Adams, Leif Ove Andsnes — even the award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns.
Kristina Lynn
Kristina Lynn is the Operations Coordinator at WFMT and joined the announcing staff in 2020. She has hosted live performances and artist interviews with the Rush Hour Concerts and has done voiceover work for the WFMT Radio Network. With an easygoing approach, Kristina aims to welcome all types of listeners to classical music and explore the art form from a 21st-century perspective. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree specializing in Trumpet Performance from DePaul University. Before announcing at WFMT, she has previously worked in radio production at both WFMT and at WQXR in New York.
Dennis Moore
Dennis Moore joined the WFMT announcing staff in 1990 after being a regular listener to the station via cable during his ten years as music director of WMFE in Orlando, Florida. Since 2018, Dennis has served as the host of Weekday Mornings. Dennis has worn many hats at WFMT: as program director, announcer, host of Music in Chicago, the Dame Myra Hess Concerts, concerts from Northeastern Illinois University, and special broadcast events including the Aspen Music Festival. Dennis also presents music on weekday evenings and on weekend mornings. Dennis is active making music around town (and in Reykjavik, Iceland and Malibu, California, among other locations) as a pianist with his partner, violinist Sara Su Jones.
LaRob K. Rafael
LaRob K. Rafael joined the WFMT announcing staff in 2020 as a fill-in host and became WFMT’s full-time weekend morning host and producer in Fall of 2021. A Bass-Baritone from the DMV area (Maryland), LaRob has been involved with music since childhood and is a graduate of DePaul University, where he studied Vocal Performance. He has since gone on to work with arts organizations including Lyric Opera of Chicago, La Caccina (a professional women’s ensemble), Black Opera Alliance, Black Administrators of Opera, and Sphinx Organization to name a few. He is the Founder and Artistic Director of Hearing in Color and combines his experience and research to change the predominantly white, European, male classical canon.
Dave Schwan
Dave Schwan has been around music all his life and has worked in broadcasting for over 40 years. Dave joined WFMT in 2010, and he hosts a number of programs including live broadcasts from Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts and the Grant Park Music Festival. In addition, he is a program host for the internationally syndicated WFMT Jazz Network. Dave is also the Sunday morning news anchor at WGN radio. As an amateur musician, he has been involved in various instrumental and choral groups in Chicago, playing both classical and jazz music. A native of Highland, Indiana, Dave grew up listening to WFMT and attending concerts around the Chicago area. During his travels, he’s had the opportunity to attend concerts around the U.S. and in Europe.
Peter van de Graaff
Peter van de Graaff joined the Beethoven Satellite Network in February 1989 after a year as one of the staff announcers on WFMT. He serves as overnight host on WFMT, a program heard on many radio stations across the United States. As a professional singer, Peter has performed with opera companies and orchestras throughout the world including the Czech State Orchestra, and with the New Orleans, Utah, Colorado Springs, and San Antonio symphonies. Peter is currently the music director and morning host of KWAX, Classical Oregon.
Rich Warren
Rich Warren grew up in Evanston, Illinois. When he left for the University of Illinois in 1968, he created the radio show Changes on a local station, an unabashed imitation of The Midnight Special. Since 1974, Rich has recorded a thousand folk music concerts and produced and hosted the WFMT Folk Music Festival. In 1983, Rich became a co-host of The Midnight Special, and later became its sole host in 1996. In 1998, he launched Folkstage, a live concert series from WFMT’s Levin Performance Studio. Rich has also contributed to newspapers and magazines as a freelance technology writer, and as a reviewer for Sing Out! magazine. In 2008, Folk Alliance International honored him as Folk DJ of the Year. In 2017, he was inducted by FAI into the Folk DJ Hall of Fame.
Jan Weller
Jan Weller has worked as both a host and producer for WFMT on-and-off since 1995. He is currently WFMT’s Saturday afternoon host and serves as a fill-in host for other station announcers. Jan first displayed his love of music at the age of 2; he happened to hear a marching band’s rehearsal, and when they stopped, he yelled out, “More mooie!” He began working at his local NPR station while still a music student at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and went on to work at public radio stations in North Carolina, Oregon, and Wisconsin, including a five-year stint as a talk show host on the Wisconsin Public Radio network. Since arriving at WFMT, Jan has had the opportunity to travel to Israel and South Africa on production projects for the WFMT Radio Network, and in 2002, he won a Peter Lisagor Award for the documentary The Making of Princess Magogo. He is an avid listener to music of all sorts and attends as many concerts as he can!