Heifetz visited much of Europe while still in his teens. In April 1911, he performed in an outdoor concert in St. Petersburg before 25,000 spectators; there was such a reaction that police officers needed to protect the young violinist after the concert.
In 1914, he performed with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Arthur Nikisch. The conductor said he had never heard such an excellent violinist.

Heifetz and his family left Russia in 1917, traveling by rail to the Russian far east and then by ship to the US, arriving in San Francisco. On Oct 27, 1917, Heifetz played for the first time in the US, at Carnegie Hall in New York, and became an
immediate sensation. Fellow violinist Mischa Elman in the audience asked "Do you think it's hot in here?", whereupon the pianist Leopold Godowsky, in the next seat, replied, "Not for pianists."

In 1917, Heifetz was elected an honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, the national fraternity for men in music, by the fraternity's Alpha chapter at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. At 16, he was perhaps the youngest person ever
elected to membership in the organization. Heifetz remained in the country and became an American citizen in 1925. A story circulates that tells of an interaction with one of the Marx Brothers: when he told the brother (usually Groucho or Harpo) that he
had been earning his living as a musician since the age of seven, he received the reply, "Before that, I suppose, you were just a bum."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jascha_Heifetz

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