Valery Gavrilin was born in 1939 in Vologda. When he was 3, his father died as a volunteer during the Siege of Leningrad. His mother was imprisoned when he was 10 and Gavrilin was sent to an orphanage in the village of Kovyrino near Vologda. At the age of 11, Gavrilin entered a school of music where I.M. Belozemtsev, a teacher at Leningrad Conservatory, happened to hear him and from the age of 12 to 16, Gavrilin went to the children's school in Leningrad to study clarinet, piano and composition. In 1954 he graduated from the Conservatory with two specialities: composition (under professor Orest Evlakhov) and musicology (under professor F.A. Rubtsov). Shortly thereafter, Gavrilin published the vocal cycle that would make his name, the Russian Notebook. He continued at the Conservatory as a teacher.