For her fifth birthday, French composer Betsy Jolas received a tiny statuette of Mozart at the piano. Although it has taken her "a great many years to even admit that this was possible," Jolas points to that gift in 1931 as shaping her desire to compose.

That initial push has led her on a long-ranging compositional path that brings her to Pittsburgh this weekend for master classes and a concert as Pitt's Franz Lehar Composer-in-Residence.

Jolas' career and compositions cross cultural boundaries. The daughter of poet Eugene Jolas, she spent her teen years in New York City. After the conclusion of World War II, Jolas began studies at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique in Paris, eventually succeeding Oliver Messiaen as the school's Professor of Analysis (a position she held until her retirement in 1992).

Jolas is sensitive to her cross-cultural identity, noting that, "I am constantly aware that I belong to both cultures, which is very stimulating.

"As primarily European yet very much at home in America, I have often noticed that Americans find me somewhat exotic, and this not only amuses me but gives me ideas for establishing links. Europeans, on the other hand, often make remarks on my 'strange' -- not to say 'bad' -- tastes in music, my excuse being that I am also American."

Part of Jolas' creative process is to conceive of a new work as an unformed "sound project." Her compositional goal is to then "discover and put to work the compositional devices best suited to realizing [it]." On Sunday night's program, Jolas' new piano duo "Teletalks" will receive its second performance. The five-movement work draws on Jolas' childhood memories of making international phone calls via undersea cables. The two pianists are engaged in a "difficult and obstructed dialog" that is hindered by the metaphoric static and time delays created by the imagined communicative distance.

University of Pittsburgh composer Amy Williams, who will perform the piece with pianist Winston Choi, describes Jolas' music as "incredibly detailed for the performers. Each note has three or four [expressive] markings." But the overall effect is music that is "very elegant, expressive and coloristic."

Williams and Choi will partner with fellow pianists Amy Briggs and Lisa Kaplan for the premiere performances of a newly discovered transcription of Edgard Varese's "Ameriques" for two pianos, eight hands, by the composer. Williams thinks that pairing "Ameriques" with Jolas' works will provide illuminating contrasts to each composer's esthetic. Varese's "very percussive and vertical" work will highlight the fluidity and impressionistic qualities inherent to Jolas' compositional voice.

Pitt violist and conductor Roger Zahab will perform Jolas' 1984 composition "Episode sixieme" for solo viola. Zahab describes the work as a "combination of gestural and lyrical explorations of the sound of the viola ... almost like an arabesque."

Part of the Lehar residency involves master classes with the university's graduate student composers. From these meetings with the student composers, Jolas hopes they will have a better understanding of "the reality of their urge to compose," and to re-evaluate "aspects of their own budding musical personality and hopefully set out to explore new areas."

That's something of which she has made a life and a long career.