Charles Strouse's ''Concerto America'' is a strange and rather wonderful beast, a composer's tribute to every kind of music he has heard, loved, and composed over the last 72 years.

He has written it to please himself. It presents an extraordinary kaleidoscopic salute to dozens of styles of American popular music, but the ingenuity and craftsmanship of the assembly pays tribute to Strouse's years of classical study before he became a leading Broadway composer (''Bye Bye Birdie,'' ''Annie''). The opening trumpet salute, with its surprise blue note, runs through the whole piece, and the invervals of ''America the Beautiful'' generate much of it. There are some quotations -

''Swanee River,'' ''Ragtime Doll'' - but most of it is Strouse's own music, written in grateful tribute, with a poignant central section rewritten in response to the events of Sept. 11. Most of the concerto is exhilaratingly assimilative, but there is also a sense of the precariousness of civilization.

The piece is very tricky indeed, but conductor Keith Lockhart, Biegel, and the Esplanade Orchestra assembled it with spirit and expertise.