WFMT Hosts

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 joined the WFMT team as a part-time presenter in 2015, and went full-time in 2020 as the producer and host of Introductions and Sunday Afternoons with Robbie Ellis. He's fronted a variety of broadcasts and events for WFMT, including hosting Folkstage and Classical Cabaret from the piano. Originally from Auckland, New Zealand, he started in classical music radio at RNZ Concert. Outside radio, he has created comedy classical concerts for the Oistrakh Symphony of Chicago, the Chicago Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, and Fourth Coast Ensemble; and he works a music director at the Chicago Magic Lounge and The Second City. Robbie hosts pre-concert talks for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Grant Park Music Festival, Apollo's Fire, the Northbrook Symphony, and the Rush Hour Concerts. He has had compositions played by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and Auckland Philharmonia, among others. You can find his comedy albums on Bandcamp, Spotify, and Apple Music.

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.

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.

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.