Octay Gadir oglu Zulfugarov was born in 1929 in a family of judge. In 1945 he entered Musical School № 1 the violoncello department and Octay finished 7 years musical school with bad marks. Afterwards he continued his education at the Musical School named after A. Zeynalli. As he didn’t have a piano at home, he worked at music in classrooms at nights and got awards at the musical competitions held at the republic. For some period he studied at violoncello department at the State Conservatoire subsequently he entered the Pr. Gara Garayev’s composers department without passing any exams.
In 1957 when he was a third-year student a piano trio composed by the young composer gained a success at the congress of Azerbaijani Composers. In 1958 he successfully graduated from the Gara Garayev’s department, having followed his teacher’s advice Octay Zulfugarov started composing range songs for children. Meanwhile he composed “Giz - ulduz” (girl-star), “Pishik ve Serche” (Cat and Sparrow), and “Meshe nagili” (Forest fairt-tale) operas. The composer’s “Shenlen menim xalgim” (Be happy my people) overture was honored with laureate name in 1962 in Moscow. At the same time O. Zulfugarov composed the musical comedy “Shangulum, Shungulum, Mangulum”, concerts for violoncello and flute, symphonical poems, cantatas, four symphonies, instrumental plays and music for theatre and cinemas.

In 2010 – 2012 O. Zulfugarov composed two-part ballet “Sehrli alma” (Magic apple) based on the fairy-tale “Malik Mammad” together with Tamilla Babayeva, the art director of “Tumurjug” and “Aysel” Children Song Theatre and Vidadi Khalilov he compiled musical students books for II and V classes.
“Tumurjug” and “Aysel” Children Song Theatre prepared programs at the Azerbaijan State Television for many years under the guidance of Octay Zulfugarov. Along with musical works the composer wrote poems as well and his poems were released in the collection “”Okhuyur Aysel (Aysel sings).
In 1972 Octay Zulfugarov was honored with the name of Art Worker of Azerbaijan, in 2000 he was honored with the name of People’s Artist of Azerbaijan, in 2009 he was awarded with “Order of Glory” at the present he is a presidential scholar and art director of State Children Philharmonic.