The summer of 2025 was a busy and transformative season for Edmonton folk duo Halfway Home. The songwriting pair of Amanda Penner and Zackary Wilson Elliott hit their stride on the Western Canadian festival circuit, captivating audiences across Alberta with their serene, at-times cosmic melodies and fingerpicked guitars. Their breakout moment came at this year’s Edmonton Folk Music Festival, where they were recognized as runner-up for the Best Emerging Artist Award.
“It was definitely a bit of a surprise,” says Elliott. “But it was really validating and kind of just reaffirmed that we somewhat know what we’re doing, and whatever we’re doing is working.”
“We’ve been in this duo for just over a year now, so it hasn’t been very long,” adds Penner. “To have had the success that we have in such a short time has been really special.”
Although their collaboration as Halfway Home is relatively new, neither Penner nor Elliott are strangers to the Canadian folk scene, with both building impressive solo careers before joining forces. Elliott has carved out a reputation as a tireless performer, playing more than 40 shows across North America in 2023 alone, while amassing nearly 20,000 streams on Spotify.
Penner, meanwhile, made their festival debut at age seventeen at the Canmore Folk Festival in support of their first EP, Honey & Heartache (2019). They have since toured widely, performing at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival, Winnipeg Folk Festival, Tiny Lights, Waynestock, and beyond. In addition to their work as a performing artist, Penner is also an established community builder, having founded the Toadstool Arts & Music Collective to foster the 2SLGBTQIA+ performing community across Canada.
Of course, writing as a duo can introduce new layers of complexity, no matter how seasoned a songwriter may be. “When I write solo, it almost feels like an exorcism,” says Penner. “But writing with someone else feels different.”
But “different” certainly isn’t a bad thing in this case; both on-stage and in-studio, Halfway Home have an innate chemistry in both their performance and writing, weaving shared influences of Watchhouse, The Milk Carton Kids, and Gregory Alan Isakov with their own unique voices to create a blissful blend of spellbinding harmonies and storytelling.
“No two songs come about the same way,” explains Elliott. “I’ve kind of learned to just embrace that and lean into not expecting it to go the same way every single time.”
As the duo prepares to hunker down for winter, they look forward to exploring and refining their shared creative process as they work on their debut EP. As Penner explains, “the recording process collaboratively has been really fun so far, so we’re excited to do some more of that.” With that excitement guiding them, Halfway Home enters the colder months ready to write their next chapter.
Listen to Halfway Home live with their debut single, “Cypress Equilibrium”:
