Background
Okunev"s father was an engineer His mother was a dressmaker.
Okunev"s father was an engineer His mother was a dressmaker.
From the age of 8 he attended a musical school in Leningrad. He graduated from the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in Leningrad, where he studied with O. Yevlakov and Boris Klyuzner, in 1956.
From 1957 to 1960 Okunev taught music at Frunze, (now Bishkek), in Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1964 he returned to the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory to study with Dmitri Shostakovich as a post-graduate pupil. In 1968 Okunev narrowly escaped from drowning in an accident on Lake Ladoga. After his death, an asteroid was named for him ("10990 Okunev") by its discoverer, North. South. Chernykh.