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All year long, NPR features the best of contemporary music with interviews, performances and profiles. In celebration of the 48th Grammy Awards, a look at selected winners who were featured in the past year on NPR shows.

The Magic Numbers are a quartet of two pairs of brothers and sisters from Britain. Their self-titled debut showcases a delightful mix of musical inspirations ranging from '60s harmony groups, epic rock and singer-songwriters like Dylan and Cohen.

Though he has toured with Norah Jones as a guitarist, Richard Julian also has a distinguished solo career of his own. His previous album, Good Life, won an Independent Music Award as best album of the year. His latest release is Slow New York.

The Wood Brothers perform the latest in a series of midday concerts from NPR Music and WXPN. The roots-rock duo's show has ended. But their full performance from the stage of World Cafe Live in Philadelphia, Pa., is available in archive form.

The Vanity Project is the first solo effort by Steven Page, one of the frontmen of the wildly successful Canadian folk-pop band Barenaked Ladies. The self-titled album is something of a departure.

Birgit Nilsson, who is often described as the greatest Wagnerian soprano of the post-World War II era, has died at the age of 87. Her family in Sweden is keeping private the cause and exact date of her death.

Composer Tan Dun grew up in Mao's China. As a boy, he saw his parents sent away for so-called "re-education." He describes his musical coming of age under China's Cultural Revolution.

Brazilian group Nacao Zumbi present a modern blend of their country's musical heritage with the global sounds of funk, punk and hip-hop that are seeping into their country's popular culture. the band counts such diverse tastemakers as David Byrne, Asian Dub Foundation and Goldie as fans

The punk rock group Arctic Monkeys is clambering up the British music charts. Their debut album is soon to be released in the United States. Influences include Oasis and The Clash, but they have their own sound.

Cabaret singer Maude Maggart has a show biz pedigree — her grandparents performed together in a swing band in the 1930s and '40s, her parents met in the original cast of the Broadway musical Applause and her little sister is pop star Fiona Apple. Her shows and albums have been earning rave reviews.