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Birmingham Town Hall hosts on Saturday what are probably the city premieres of three of Mozart’s earliest works, two certainly composed when this Bart Simpson of music was 11, the other written no later than the age of 12.

The conductor Ian Page has created Classical Opera, with the aim of bringing to life the context in which Mozart created his music, performing and recording all 21 of the composer’s operas.

A combination of period-instrument orchestral ensembles and young singers is bringing the project to life, originally in London, but increasingly spreading outside the metropolis and out into Europe.

Ian tells me about his enthusiasm for the idea.

“I began exploring Mozart’s early works primarily to see what they told us about his mature masterpieces, but I soon became passionate about them in their own right. It’s always wonderful to see and hear the audience’s appreciation and enthusiasm for this repertoire. People genuinely seem to forget pretty quickly that the music was written by a child and just enjoy the music on its own terms.”

Saturday’s programme includes the dramatic cantata Grabmusik (almost a proto-Dream of Gerontius, with its conversation between a soul on the point of death and its guardian angel) and the opera Apollo et Hyacinthus (sung in the original Latin, with surtitles here).

The evening begins with the Lambach Symphony, parts of which were probably composed in London in 1766 when Mozart was 10, other parts written in collaboration with Daddy Leopold when the Mozarts stayed at the Benedictine monastery in Lambach on their return home to Salzburg from Vienna two years later.

“Works like Grabmusik and Apollo et Hyacinthus do reveal an incredibly accomplished technical ability,” says Ian, “but there is also a palpable sense of fun and energy, and the colours are all quite extreme and primary, as you’d expect from an 11-year-old with lots to say. Mozart had clearly had a musical education that was second to none.