Ayvalık International Music Academy (AIMA), a music training center founded in 1998 in Balıkesir, Ayvalık. It received the Vehbi Koç Award for culture in 2011, along with its founder, Filiz Ali.
AIMA provides opportunities for young musicians to work alongside distinguished international teachers, helping to broaden their educational experience as well as their horizons. At its center in Ayvalık, the academy holds annual summer and spring master classes, which last 8–10 days and primarily focus on bowed string instruments. It has diversified considerably since its foundation and now offers composition workshops, together with master classes in creative writing, piano, flute, guitar, singing and opera. Ayla Erduran, Suna Kan, Lukas David, Peter Bruns, Valery Oistrakh and İdil Biret are among the considerable number of internationally renowned virtuoso musicians who have participated in the Academy’s work.
AIMA organizes the Ayvalık Music Festival, which has been held every July since 2013 and strives to enrich the cultural life of Ayvalık with film screenings that showcase classic cinema.