Cui Lingyin was a figure of the Tang dynasty, but his life, birth and death dates, and biographical details remain unknown, and publicly available information is limited. His name has survived chiefly because of his work Jiaofang Ji (Records of the Court Music Academy). This book is an important source on the Tang court's music academy system, its music, dance and variety performances, and anecdotes about its performers. It covers the organization, repertoire and performance practices of the palace music institution during the Kaiyuan and Tianbao eras, and offers valuable primary material for the study of Tang music, dance, drama and popular entertainment. Its style is concise and its accounts are specific, combining historical value with the interest of notes and anecdotes, and it is often cited by later scholars of music history, drama history and Tang culture. The library currently holds one work by this author, Jiaofang Ji, classified as a philosophical reading. Because biographical material on the author himself is extremely scarce, knowledge of him and his work must still rely mainly on the text of Jiaofang Ji and related sources.
