Muralidharan began learning the
violin from his mother, Shrimati R. Komalavalli. He later studied under Sri R.S. Gopalakrishnan, a violinist from
Chennai. Muralidharan gave his first performance at the age of 10 and has been a violinist for over 50 years. He has performed in Radio Sangeetha Sammelan concerts on
Doordarshan and has been a violin
accompanist on several albums. From 1978 to 2004, he worked as a violin artist at All India Radio in
Trichy. Over the years, Muralidharan has performed in the
United States,
Canada,
Australia,
Singapore,
Malaysia, the
United Arab Emirates,
Qatar,
Bahrain,
Japan, and
Kuwait. Muralidharan has accompanied many vocal and instrumental artists in their concerts, including
Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer,
Alathur Srinivasa Iyer,
M.D. Ramanathan,
Dr. M. Balamuralikrishna, Voleti Venkateswarulu, Nedunoori Krishnamurthy,
R.K. Srikantan,
Maharajapuram V. Santhanam,
Madurai Somasundaram,
Palghat K.V. Narayanaswamy, T.M. Thyagarajan,
D.K. Jayaraman, T.K. Govinda Rao, Dr.
S. Ramanathan,
B. Rajam Iyer, Tanjore S. Kalyanaraman,
Seerkazhi Govindarajan,
Chidambaram C.S. Jayaraman,
K.J. Yesudas,
T.V. Sankaranarayanan,
Madurai T.N. Seshagopalan,
Neyveli Santhanagopalan,
Sanjay Subrahmanyan and
P. Unnikrishnan. He has also accompanied instrumentalists including
S. Balachander (
veena),
M. Balamuralikrishna (
viola),
T.R. Mahalingam (
flute), Dr.
N. Ramani (flute),
Namagiripetai Krishnan (
nadaswaram), A.K.C Natrajan (
clarinet) and
Kadri Gopalnath (
saxophone). In solo concerts, he has been accompanied by
percussion artists such as Dr.
T.K. Murthy,
Vellore Ramabadran,
Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman,
Trichy Sankaran,
Guruvayur Dorai, Tanjore Upendran,
Karaikudi R. Mani,
Mannargudi Easwaran,
Srimushnam Raja Rao,
Thiruvarur Bakthavatsalam,
T.H. Vikku Vinayakram, Thirupanithura Radhakrishnan, Coimbatore Mohanram,
V. Suresh, among others. In 1985, he performed a 26-hour non-stop marathon violin concert held at
Sri Rangam Temple in Tamil Nadu. Muralidharan accompanied Sri
K.J. Yesudas in
Dubai on the 50th anniversary of
Indian Independence Day in 1997. ==Awards and titles ==