 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 SSR.