It’s always nice to think about taking a trip to Italy, and not just because that country is so much warmer than Maryland has been in recent weeks. You can take a vicarious trip to Italy thanks to the Howard County Concert Orchestra’s “La Dolce Vita!” concert on Sunday, Jan. 14 at 7 p.m. at First Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ellicott City.

This sort of European adventure is becoming something of a new tradition for the orchestra, which in recent seasons has done New Year-celebrating programs that amount to musical passports. It’s something that the orchestra’s music director, Ron Mutchnik, likes to do as a way of celebrating the start of another year.