Founding Director of the Ayvalık International Music Academy (AIMA), Filiz Ali was born in Istanbul. After graduating from the Ankara State Conservatory in piano, she went to the United States on a Fulbright Scholarship. She completed her studies at the New England Conservatory in Boston and Mannes College of Music in New York. She received a master’s degree in musicology from the London University King’s College in 1986. Prof. Filiz Ali served as piano and accompaniment teacher at the Ankara State Conservatory (1962-65), accompanist at the Istanbul State Opera (1965-72), and piano and accompaniment teacher at the Mimar Sinan University State Conservatory (1972- 85). She became a teacher in the musicology department in 1987 and held the position of Musicology Department Chair between the years 1990 and 2005. Filiz Ali served as the General Artistic Director of the Cemal Reşit Rey Concert Hall in Istanbul between 1989 and 1992 and the Artistic Advisor of the International Eskişehir Festival at the same time. Filiz Ali produced music programmes for the TRT Ankara and Istanbul radios in the period of 1962- 1995 and for the BBC Turkish in London in 1985-86. She wrote on music in newspapers, including the Cumhuriyet, Hürriyet, Yeni Yüzyıl, Radikal, and Milliyet and in magazines, including the Gösteri, Marie-Claire, Vizyon, YK Kitaplık, and Müzikoloji. Between the years 2002 and 2004, she produced and hosted music programmes on Açık Radio. A founder of the Balkans Music Forum, Filiz Ali represented Turkey in the UNESCO International Music Council in Montevideo, Uruguay in the October of 2003. She has been the representative for Turkey in the European Music Council since 2005. Filiz Ali is the author of Sabahattin Ali, Music and the Problems of Our Music, Musician Portraits from the World and Turkey, Filiz Should Never Grieve…, A Present to Cemal Reşit Rey, Ferhunde Erkin/Amongst the Keys, Bülent Arel, a Pioneer of Electronic Music, A Modern Centre for Music in the Land of Myths: A Masterclass Story from Ayvalık, and Musical Journeys. Filiz Ali was honoured with a Chavelier de L’Ordre des Artes et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture in 1995. She won the Vehbi Koç Foundation Award in 2011.